J Archaeol Method Theory (2010) 17:15–80
DOI 10.1007/s10816-009-9076-x
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing:
Archaeological Implications of a Thermal Model
Ian Gilligan
Published online: 6 January 2010
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract This paper presents a thermal model for the prehistoric origin and
development of clothing. A distinction is drawn between simple and complex forms
of clothing, with broad implications for the interpretation of paleolithic technological
transitions and the emergence of modern human behavior. Physiological principles
and paleoenvironmental data are harnessed to identify conditions requiring simple,
loosely draped garments and the more challenging conditions that demanded
additional protection in the form of complex garment assemblages. No actual
clothing survives from the Pleistocene, yet the archaeological record yields evidence
for technological and other correlates of clothing—more evidence than is generally
supposed. Major innovations and trends in the distributions and relative frequencies
of lithic and other tool forms may reflect the changing need for portable insulation in
the context of fluctuating ice age climates. Moreover, the nonthermal repercussions
of complex clothing can be connected with archaeological signatures of modern
human behavior, notably adornment. Alternative models are less parsimonious in
accounting for the geographical and temporal variability of prominent technological
and other behavioral patterns in association with environmental change.
Keywords Clothing . Climate . Paleolithic technology . Modern human behavior
Introduction
Recent developments in molecular biology exploring the genetic history of human
lice have rekindled interest in an old anthropological conundrum: the origins of
clothing (e.g., Kittler et al. 2003, 2004; Reed et al. 2004, 2007; Light and Reed
2009). In prehistoric archaeology, the work of Soffer, Adovasio, Hayden, and others
(e.g., Hayden 1990; Adovasio et al. 1996; Soffer et al. 1998; Soffer 2004; Kuhn and
I. Gilligan (*)
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200,
Australia
e-mail: ian.g@bigpond.net.au
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Gilligan
Stiner 2006) has refocused attention on the biased nature of the archaeological
record with respect to perishable technologies in general and clothing in particular
and the implications of this preservation bias for reconstructing past lifestyles and
social relations. Furthermore, a number of studies have highlighted the biological
vulnerabilities and the consequent need for portable thermal protection in the form of
clothing as human populations spread beyond their tropical homelands into higher
latitudes during the Pleistocene ice ages (e.g., Hoffecker 2002a, b, 2005a, b; Aiello
and Wheeler 2003; Gamble 2003; White 2006a; Gilligan 2007a).
This paper advocates a thermal model for the origin and development of clothing
and outlines the reasons why it is important for archaeology. In this approach,
principles and findings from thermal physiology are combined with paleoclimatic
data to infer the circumstances in which clothing would be required and hence render
prehistoric clothing less invisible. When this method for predicting the presence of
clothing is applied to the global archaeological record, it becomes apparent that
technological and other correlates of manufacturing appropriate forms of clothing
required for human survival correspond broadly to fundamental human behavioral
trends and transitions in the late Quaternary. The need for artificial portable
insulation that arose within the context of thermal challenges to hominin survival
during the Pleistocene connects these archaeological trends tangibly to major
paleoenvironmental fluctuations. For instance, in relation to lithic technologies, the
temporal and geographical distributions and relative frequencies of basic tool forms
(namely, implements that facilitated the efficient scraping, cutting, and piercing of
animal hides) may reflect the changing need for adequate protection from cold.
Moreover, complex forms of clothing worn on a regular basis began to acquire social
functions independent of meeting thermal requirements, and the repercussions of
these symbolic and other nonthermal purposes relate to the emergence of certain
archaeological markers of modern human behavior.
While protection from cold has long been one of the leading theories for the
origin of clothing, the thermal model presented here differs in drawing a distinction
between “simple” and “complex” clothing based on the physiological properties of
clothing, and it suggests that making this distinction renders the prehistoric
development of clothing more visible archaeologically. In emphasizing the
technological correlates of manufacturing such clothing in the paleolithic, it claims
that major behavioral trends visible in the archaeological record reflect the relevant
environmental parameters that promoted the acquisition of thermally effective
clothing.
After presenting this theoretical model and its archaeological predictions, the
thermal physiology of cold tolerance and clothing will be reviewed, followed by a
critique of competing theories of clothing origins (including a brief overview of the
ethnographic evidence often cited in the literature). The main biological reason for
human cold vulnerability—a lack of sufficient body hair cover—is discussed, along
with theories as to why we became denuded, with a focus on the recent genetic
evidence from lice studies relating to the origins of both “nakedness” and of
clothing. Next, the paleoenvironmental context is presented, namely, the series of
Pleistocene ice ages spanning the latter stages of hominin evolution, which exposed
the unusual thermal vulnerability of a denuded primate. Attention then shifts to the
archaeological record and the “visibility” of paleolithic clothing. The geographical
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
17
distribution of hominins throughout the Pleistocene is interpreted as a reflection of
changing environmental conditions, with evidence of increasing cold tolerance
indicative of improved behavioral adaptation. The predicted technological correlates
and other archaeological markers associated with manufacturing simple and complex
clothing are then examined, particularly lithic developments and evidence from use–
wear studies beginning in the Lower Pleistocene, along with the advent of needles,
ornaments, and depictions of clothing in art from the Upper Pleistocene, both
mobiliary (e.g., figurines) and parietal (e.g., engravings and hand stencils). Finally,
the implications of this thermal model for modern human behavior are considered
briefly, suggesting, for instance, a relationship between the advent of complex
clothing and the visibility of adornment and symbolic behavior in the archaeological
record.
Definition of Clothing
The term “clothing” is used here in the strict sense of denoting items that act to
enclose or cover the body (Roach-Higgins and Eicher 1995, pp. 9–10),
corresponding to the definition of clothes in the current edition of the Concise
Oxford English Dictionary (2008), “items worn to cover the body”—as distinct from
broader terms such as “dress” and “costume” which encompass not only clothes but
any form of body modification or alteration (e.g., Eicher et al. 2000, p. 4; Entwistle
2000, p. 6; Ember and Ember 2007, p. 281; cf. Barcan 2004, pp. 2–9).
A Thermal Model
Despite the absence of paleolithic clothing remains, there exist more archaeological
signatures of clothing (and more methods for reasonably inferring its existence) than
is widely believed. Data from paleoenvironmental sciences can be utilized in
conjunction with findings from human physiology to estimate with some precision
the pertinent thermal conditions such as wind chill and hence the human need for
clothing. One theoretical implication is that the acquisition and improvement of
clothing assemblages—in concert with environmental contingencies—involved a
series of innovations which relate to the large-scale patterning of technological,
demographic, and behavioral developments documented in the archaeological record
of the late Quaternary (Fig. 1).
The basic principle in this model is that the known physiological thresholds for
clothing allow us to predict from paleoclimatic data those environmental conditions
in which clothing (simple or complex) will be required for human survival. In effect,
this allows clothing to be rendered archaeologically visible, despite the absence of
any actual remains of clothing (Fig. 2).
The model is grounded in the science of thermal physiology and draws on what is
known about human biological and behavioral adaptations to cold exposure. It
emphasizes that humans have very limited biological defenses against cold and that
we rely heavily on behavioral adaptations. Of our three fundamental behavioral
adaptations—the use of fire, shelter, and clothing—it is the acquisition of portable
personal insulation that ultimately determines whether humans can occupy cold
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Gilligan
Fig. 1 Clothing-related global trends and some of the main archaeological implications of the thermal
model.
environments on a sustained basis. Physiological principles can define both the
environmental limits to biological adaptations and the thresholds at which clothing
will be required for human survival. Furthermore, the physiological properties of
clothing allow us to specify those environmental conditions that will demand
improvements in the construction of clothing if humans are to tolerate more extreme
climatic regimes. The physiologically relevant features of past environmental
conditions—minimum air temperatures, for example, and wind chill levels—can
be estimated from available data provided by paleoenvironmental sciences. The
Fig. 2 The thermal model showing how the inferred need for clothing (based on physiological and
paleoenvironmental findings) allows prehistoric clothing to be rendered visible, leading to the prediction
of clothing-related technologies in the archaeological record.
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
19
reconstruction of past thermal environments makes it possible to infer whether
prehistoric humans needed to wear clothes for protection from cold and whether
further innovations in clothing technology were required (such as tailored fitting of
garments to enclose the body and the addition of multiple layers). The model applies
these physiological and paleoenvironmental parameters to the archaeological record
of the paleolithic with regard to evidence for the presence of hominins in cooler
environments. This allows inferences to be drawn—based on thermal physiology
and paleoenvironmental reconstruction—as to when and where hominins needed to
avail themselves of clothing. Additionally, the model proposes that confirmation of
hominin survival in cooler environments should be accompanied by archaeological
indicators that reflect the technological correlates of manufacturing clothing and also
certain postulated repercussions of wearing clothes. This model is testable against
the archaeological record, as it predicts that the proposed markers of clothing will
manifest patterning in relation to climatic fluctuations consistent with physiological
contingencies. The key components of the proposed thermal model are as follows:
1. Thermal physiology offers a firm scientific basis for specifying biological limits
to the hominin occupation of cold environments and also for defining the
insulatory properties of clothing.
2. Thermal physiology allows the delineation of past environmental thresholds at
which specific clothing developments were required for hominin survival in cold
environments.
3. Beyond certain environmental limits, the use of fire and shelter as behavioral
adaptations to cold were insufficient to maintain hominin survival and needed to
be supplemented by adequate artificial portable insulation in the form of
clothing.
4. The manufacture and use of clothing favored the advent and/or proliferation of
particular technologies and repercussions that are detectable in the archaeological record of the paleolithic.
This model makes certain assumptions, discussed in due course, including the
physiological vulnerability of hominins to cold (particularly the reduction in body
hair cover), the thermal (as opposed to psychosocial or cultural) origins of clothing,
and the likely technological and other correlates of manufacturing simple and
complex clothing. While it predicts certain trends in the archaeological record, any
such trends will reflect probabilistic (not deterministic) relationships, given
uncertainties with respect to paleoenvironmental and archaeological data, and also
the nondeterministic relationships posited between clothing manufacture and
technological developments. The latter, for instance, may be evident in the findings
from use–wear studies. Corroborating the predictions of this model will entail a
search for correlations: hence, the manufacture of clothing is hypothesized to have
technological “correlates” in the form of scraping, cutting, and piercing tools,
acknowledging the well-known multipurpose functions of paleolithic tools and the
fact that all these clothing-related functions may be performed with simple flake
tools. Testing the predictions, therefore, involves examining the extent to which the
expected large-scale, long-term associations (such as a proliferation of purported
technological correlates with intensified cold exposure) are discernible in the
archaeological record. The proposed methodology is not dissimilar to that advocated
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Gilligan
by Binford with regard to variation in the ethnographic record, employing a
scientifically robust theoretical base (in this case, thermal physiology) to guide the
projection of archaeological data onto physiologically relevant “environmental
frames of reference”—Binford, coincidentally, argues that temperature is the single
most important ecological variable—and then analyzing the results to discern
whether any “interesting patterns become visible” (Binford 2001, p. 113).
The model predicts that certain archaeological evidence should be detectable as a
consequence of the inferred presence of clothing, firstly in relation to the distribution
(geographical and temporal) of human settlement, insofar as the presence of simple
or complex clothing will permit humans to occupy colder environmental zones.
Second, other archaeological evidence should reflect the technological aspects of
manufacturing the requisite clothing. Conventionally, this is restricted to recognizing
specific artifact types such as eyed needles as indicating the existence of tailored
(sewn) garments, for example. However, the model goes further and stresses that the
preparation of animal hides for the manufacture of simple and complex clothing
involves a number of steps, each of which has corresponding technological
requirements. With regard to technologies (mainly, but not exclusively, lithic), it
contends that the primary steps of scraping, cutting, and piercing the hides will favor
the development of tool forms that most effectively perform these functions. An
ethnographic analogy is offered by traditional peoples in the modern-day Arctic
(whose livelihood depends upon the manufacture of adequate clothes): they are
equipped with a toolkit comprised of dedicated hide-scraping, cutting, and piercing
tools (e.g., Issenman 1997, pp. 60–95; Otak 2005). In the paleolithic, simple flake tools
may be adequate for performing all of these functions, but more effective tool forms
(and more efficient methods for their manufacture) should appear in the archaeological
record in concert with an increased human presence in colder environments.
Regular production of stone flakes for scraping hides should favor the
proliferation of recognizable “scraper” tools, such as side scrapers and end scrapers,
and an increasing reliance on hides for clothing should result in more efficient
production methods—Levallois techniques and (in the case of Neanderthals in
western Europe) Mousterian industries, for example. Scraping tools are the main
technological correlate of simple clothing, but complex clothing places an additional
emphasis on the activities of cutting and piercing hides. These functions will favor a
proliferation of more effective cutting and piercing implements, respectively (and
also the methods of manufacturing these tools more efficiently). For the function of
cutting through hides, a more elongated tool shape capable of “penetrating plastic
materials” will be favored, which is one of the obvious advantages offered by blade
tools (Semenov 1964, p. 201). In terms of blade production, methods designed to
maximize the amount of useable cutting edge obtained from a core will be favored,
with prismatic cores being an example. For the function of piercing, stone points of
various descriptions should become more frequent in association with complex
clothes, as should longer points made of bone (awls and needles). The thermal model
predicts that, in terms of the distributions and relative frequencies of these tool
forms, patterning should be evident in relation to thermal environments occupied by
hominins. Given appropriate data sets, these predictions will be testable against the
paleoenvironmental and archaeological records. The model also predicts that, in the
case of complex clothing, the acquisition of psychosocial and cultural functions for
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
21
clothing should be associated with a subsequent uncoupling of the technological and
other correlates from thermal requirements.
Human Thermal Physiology
The principles and experimental findings relating to human responses to cold
exposure have been detailed in an extensive literature over the years (e.g., Newburgh
1949; Burton and Edholm 1955; Fanger 1970; Hensel 1981; Collins 1983; Clark and
Edholm 1985; Young 1996; Jessen 2001; Parsons 2003; Golant et al. 2008).
Physiologically, primates in general are better adapted to tropical rather than
temperate climates. The thermal “comfort zone” for nonhuman primates is similar to
ours, although mild cold exposure is better tolerated by monkeys (Myers 1971).
Unlike adult humans, other primates have brown fat which can be metabolized for
heat on exposure to cold. Nonetheless, even when protected by a substantial layer of
body hair, primates (including humans) possess—by mammalian standards—a
limited physiological capacity to cope with cold. While humans have vigorous and
effective cooling responses to heat, of which sweating is the most evident, our
physiological adjustments to cold are sluggish and ineffective (Hardy et al. 1971).
The role of reduced hair cover in our greater vulnerability to cold is shown by the
fact that cold tolerance among warm-blooded animals is largely a function of body
fur thickness. The cold limit for rabbits, for example, is around −45°C, but the limit
rises towards 0°C when their fur is removed. The feathers of birds are similarly
crucial to their tolerance of cold: doves can exist at −40°C for days, but freeze after
only 20–30 min at this temperature without their feathers (Hensel et al. 1973).
Optimal thermal conditions for unclothed adult modern humans are indeed
tropical: the body begins to react to cold once the temperature falls below 27°C
(Edholm 1978, p. 26). As the ambient temperature falls below 20°C, physiological
defenses become pronounced (Clark and Edholm 1985, p. 156). These include
raising the metabolic rate as well as reducing blood flow to the skin, especially over
the exposed limbs where surface area is greatest in relation to body volume. For an
unclothed human standing still in wind-free conditions, shivering begins at around
13°C (Hardy et al. 1971); this contrasts with the Arctic fox, which does not shiver
until the temperature falls below −40°C. If there is any wind, the wind chill index
means that the effective temperature and duration of safe exposure are reduced (Siple
and Passel 1945, pp. 181–187; Quayle and Steadman 1998). With moderate wind
velocities of 10 m/s, temperatures below 0°C are dangerous to unclad humans in the
open, and high wind speeds render fire and shelter less effective.
The adult human body core has a temperature around 37°C, and death occurs if it
falls below 29°C. Once the core temperature drops below 35°C, hypothermia begins
and can lead rapidly to death if not reversed. Nowadays, this results mainly from
exposure in mountainous terrains and at sea, but it can occur even in urban areas,
especially among the homeless and the elderly, as documented in medical reports
(e.g., Pugh 1966; Tanaka and Tokudome 1991; Koljonen et al. 2004). Exposure can
also cause localized tissue injury, the most well-known being frostbite in which
freezing of tissue fluids leads to permanent damage. The result is gangrene, unless
the area involved is rewarmed and circulation is restored in sufficient time. Frostbite
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affects mainly the fingers, toes, ears, and the nose. It can occur with short-term
exposure to temperatures no lower than −10°C and with prolonged exposure to
temperatures even a little above 0°C (Frazier 1945, pp. 252–253; Burton and
Edholm 1955, p. 231; Smith 1970; Murphy et al. 2000). A milder form of cold
injury is chilblain (or pernio), associated with painful swellings, which, although
rarely progressing to widespread loss of skin tissue, may develop into serious ulcers
(Golant et al. 2008, p. 706).
Cold tolerance can be improved through acclimatization, seen especially among
routinely unclothed populations (e.g., Wyndham and Morrison 1958; Steegmann
1975; Mathew et al. 1981). Other biological adaptations can arise in the longer term,
including morphological changes such as altered body proportions that reduce heat
loss, seen, for instance, among Australian Aborigines living in cooler southern areas
(Gilligan and Bulbeck 2007). However, acclimatization and other biological
adjustments are “of little use during intense and continuous exposure” and the
human thermoregulatory system is, in its capacity to respond to cold, “definitely
inferior to that of other mammals” (Jessen 2001, p. 152).
Humans can adapt to cold, but only down to a “critical level” (Hensel 1981, p. 220).
Air temperatures exist below which hypothermia begins within a few hours, and more
rapidly with even a slight breeze. While many variables influence cold tolerance and
clothing requirements (e.g., Steadman 1984, 1995) and there is no single temperature
point that can be termed a fixed “limit” as such, the short-term safety limit for modernday humans without clothes occurs at around −1°C. For habitually unclothed humans
who are fully acclimatized, cold tolerance can however extend to around −5°C.
Clothing Physiology
The thermal insulating properties of clothing are documented in studies of clothing
physiology (e.g., Siple 1945; Newburgh 1949; Fourt and Hollies 1970; Hensel 1981;
Watkins 1984). It is not the material of clothing that diminishes heat loss as much as
pockets of air trapped next to the skin. The natural fur of other mammals works in
the same manner, trapping warm air between the fibers. There are two widely used
measures of the thermal effectiveness of clothing:
1. The total thickness, which gives an approximate indication of how much air is
trapped around the skin surface. With a typical four-layered Arctic garment
assemblage, for example, a total clothing thickness of 50 mm contains a 22.5-mm
radius of trapped air (Fourt and Hollies 1970, p. 36). Most of the insulatory effect
derives from the air between the layers of material, while air trapped within the
fibers of each layer is of secondary importance. The choice of material for each
layer is usually affected more by issues of comfort, weight, flexibility, and
permeability (to perspiration and wind) than by differing thermal qualities of
materials. However, the furs of certain species are especially effective and offer
superior insulation; the guard hairs of caribou, for instance, contain large air-filled
hollow shafts, and a two-layer outfit made of caribou skin may provide better
insulation than a four-layer assemblage comprised of woven textiles (Stenton
1991, pp. 6–10).
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
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2. The effective thermal resistance of clothing as measured by the Clo unit (Gagge
et al. 1941, p. 429). This was determined experimentally using modern-day
woven garments for a seated person (body surface area in square meters) at a
temperature of 21°C, relative humidity of <50%, and air movement of 0.1 m/s:
1 Clo ¼ 0:18 C=kcal=m2 =h:
Each layer adds around 1 Clo: modern Arctic clothing (four layers) provides
about 4 Clo (Sloan 1979, p. 17). However, the utility of Clo units for pre-Holocene
clothing is limited, for two reasons. First, the measures are derived from modern-day
tailored garments manufactured from woven fibers, the thermal qualities of which
are quite different from those of prepared animal hides and furs. Second, Clo units
apply to wind-free conditions, and so may give a misleading impression of the
protective value at colder wind chill levels, especially where prehistoric garments
may have been draped rather than fitted.
Heat loss within the layers can be minimized by having garments properly shaped
or fitted. Any movement of air, even within the layers of clothing, reduces its
thermal effectiveness. Besides wind, the other aspect of air movement is body
motion. Just as wind reduces Clo values dramatically, so can physical activity.
Insulation is reduced by up to 50% when walking briskly; activity also creates a
“bellows” effect that disrupts the air within clothing and increases sweating (Fourt
and Hollies 1970, pp. 42–44), with sweat accumulation being a major limitation on
the thermal effectiveness of clothing during outdoor activity (e.g., Huang 2006).
While it may seem incongruous to be concerned about sweating in ice age
environments, any physical activity within the warm microenvironment of the
clothed body generates considerable heat and sweating. This can result in clothes
becoming wet with perspiration, diminishing thermal insulation due to evaporative
cooling (Forbes 1949) and exacerbating the chilling effect of wind up to 16 times
(Fourt and Harris 1949, pp. 310–316). The heavier the clothing, the sooner sweating
begins and the more profuse is the sweating that accompanies physical activity
(Jeong and Tokura 1989), as early European explorers in the Arctic soon discovered
(Buijs 1997, p. 17). Indigenous clothes made from caribou skins, for example, are
comparatively light and are less prone to absorbing perspiration than woolen
garments (Stenton 1991, pp. 7–9). Moisture (whether derived externally from rain or
snow or internally from perspiration) also displaces the trapped air in clothing,
reducing insulation, so clothing must remain dry as well as permeable, despite the
risk of wind penetration (Burton and Edholm 1955, p. 69). Shelter becomes
important—from rain and snow, as well as wind. Closely fitted garments provide
superior protection from wind chill, but then degree of permeability becomes more
of an issue. Animal furs differ in their resistance to wind penetration: the coats of
kangaroos, for instance, are more resistant than those of deer (Cena and Clark 1978,
pp. 581–582). In general, garments made from woven fabrics are more “breathable”
and hence more tolerant of perspiration. Except in extreme wind chill conditions,
woven textiles confer a real advantage compared to hides and furs (e.g., Wang et al.
2007b). It is noticeable that textiles became the preferred material for clothes in
temperate and tropical regions after the ice age, during the warmer and more humid
climatic regimes of the early Holocene (Gilligan 2007b, p. 14).
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In middle latitudes during much of the late Pleistocene, thermal conditions clearly
necessitated clothing—especially in northern continental zones where winter
minimums were lowest and widespread permafrost indicates mean annual temperatures below −7°C (e.g., Kondratjeva et al. 1993; Alexeeva and Erbajeva 2000;
Goudie 2001, p. 144). Comparable modern-day environments are designated by
physiologists as multiple-layer clothing zones (Siple 1945; Auliciems and de Freitas
1976). For example, four layers are de rigueur for outdoor survival in Arctic winters
(mean monthly temperatures between −10°C and −20°C), and international standards have been established which document in detail the many factors determining
these minimum clothing requirements in varying environmental conditions (e.g.,
Olesen 2005; ISO 2007).
Simple and Complex Clothing
In the thermal model proposed here, a fundamental distinction is drawn between
“simple” and “complex” clothing (Table I) which has important archaeological
implications (Fig. 3). The distinction is based on physiological principles, and it
arises from two aspects that largely determine the thermal effectiveness of clothing.
First, whether a garment is fitted, i.e., shaped to fit closely around the body
(including limbs) as opposed to being draped loosely over the body. The second
aspect is the number of layers, with multiple layers generally requiring that at least
the inner layer(s) are fitted. Draped, single-layered clothing provides limited
protection, generally up to around 1–2 Clo, although a large thick pelt may provide
in excess of 4–5 Clo (White 2006a, p. 599). However, regardless of the insulatory
Table I Features Distinguishing Simple and Complex Clothes
Simple clothes
Complex clothes
Fitted
No
Yes
Number of layers
1
1+
Structure
Thermal physiology
Wind chill protection
Poor
Excellent
Still-air protection (generally)
1–2 Clo
2–5 Clo
Technology (paleolithic)
Scraping implements
Yes
Yes
Piercing implements (generally)
No
Yes
Cutting implements
No
Yes
Impairs cold tolerance
No
Yes
Acquires decorative role
No
Yes
Acquires social functions
No
Yes
Promotes modesty/shame
No
Yes
Becomes habitual
No
Yes
Repercussions
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
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Fig. 3 Simple and complex clothing and the associated paleolithic technologies. For simple clothing (left),
preparation of the animal pelt generally requires only scraping implements, with the exception of regions
(such as in late Pleistocene Tasmania) where only small pelts were available and a number of pelts needed to
be joined together to make a single cloak, hence the additional requirement for piercing implements (such as
bone awls). Complex clothing (right) requires dedicated scraping, cutting, and piercing implements.
potential in still-air conditions, draped garments are prone to wind penetration,
whereas fitted, multilayered assemblages offer superior protection from wind chill.
The archaeological significance of the distinction between simple and complex
clothing stems mainly from the technological implications. Where the raw materials
are animal hides, simple clothing requires little more than basic skin-preparation
techniques, mainly cleaning and scraping, achieved most effectively with scraper
tools of various descriptions. Complex garments demand that the skins also be shaped,
which means cutting, especially in making the cylinders to cover the limbs, and these
pieces are joined together by sewing. With multiple layers, the inner garments need finer
cutting and sewing to achieve the necessary close fit. Complex clothes, in other words,
are likely to be associated with more specialized scraping, cutting, and piercing
implements. In a Pleistocene context, humans with these technocomplexes were better
placed to survive more extreme wind chill conditions, while those without such
technologies were restricted in terms of their environmental range.
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Complex clothing differs also in that, once adopted, it tends to persist. This occurs
for a number of reasons. First, fitted garments enclose the body more extensively,
creating a more uniformly warm microenvironment which impairs cold tolerance,
increasing the physiological need for protection. Second, body adornment will shift
from decorating the skin surface to decorating the garments, leading to the advent of
dress and hence cultural motives for wearing clothes. Third, at a psychological level,
regular use of clothing (especially from infancy) can engender a sense of modesty
and public shame with regard to the uncovered body, which again will encourage the
ongoing use of clothes regardless of environmental requirements. All these effects
interact and they become self-reinforcing, promoting further technological, cultural,
and economic developments that become decoupled from thermal conditions—and
even, ultimately, from clothing itself.
A thermal model of clothing origins is parsimonious in that it accommodates the
acquisition (and, in many instances, subsequent priority) of nonthermal functions
and is powerful in that can predict (retrospectively) when and where humans would
require clothing, utilizing numerous lines of evidence from prehistoric archaeology,
physiology, and paleoenvironmental sciences within a multidisciplinary paradigm
(Table II). Data from the ethnographic record are also relevant, as certain pivotal
cases provide opportunities for evaluating theoretical propositions, and some have
mistakenly been cited as key evidence against a thermal origin for clothing.
Theories of Clothing Origins
Currently, the main theoretical positions on the origins of clothing can be summarized as
physical, psychological, and social (Table III). Protection from cold comprises the most
widely canvassed physical cause, while psychological and social theories cover a range
of factors which are, to varying degrees, interdependent; of these, the most tenable are
the seemingly contradictory motives of modesty and display (or decoration). However,
as argued here, the psychological and social theories confuse the secondary uses which
clothing has acquired with the factors that caused humans to first adopt clothing. In
particular, there has been considerable misinterpretation of the ethnographic record,
with scholars recruiting it selectively (and often cursorily) to support psychosocial
theories and, ostensibly, to refute theories based on protection from the cold.
One psychological explanation is the desire for decoration, linked to the social
functions of display, where “dress” (clothing worn for display) is a dominant
Table II Sources of Evidence Relating to Clothing Origins
Discipline
Major lines of evidence
Ethnography
Role of “test cases” (e.g., Australia, Andaman Islands)
Archaeology
Technologies (e.g., scrapers, needles); rock art
Physiology
Limits to cold tolerance; clothing physiology
Paleoenvironments
Pleistocene thermal conditions: temperature/wind proxies
Molecular biology
Dating of human body hair reduction and body lice
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
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Table III Main Theories of Clothing Origins
Physical
Protective: thermal (cold); others (e.g., abrasion, insects)
Psychological
Decoration/display; modesty/shame
Social
Roles/status; luxury value (complex societies)
element in fashion (e.g., Bell 1976; Davis 1992; Barnard 2002). Modern clothes also
perform prominently as symbols of group membership and status in complex
societies. On clothing origins, advocates of display are inclined to dismiss the need
for thermal insulation as “occasional and conditional” (Hollander 1988, p. 311).
However, what is often overlooked is that the body can be decorated quite
elaborately—and efficiently—without clothes, given the enormous decorative
potential of the uncovered skin surface (e.g., Langner 1959, p. 13; Ebin 1979).
Clothing and dress need not share the same origins (Boucher 1987, p. 9). In all
likelihood, dress has its origins in the decoration of the unclad body, a function
subsequently transferred to clothing. For all of its personal and cultural significance,
the human desire for finery and its modern expression through the medium of dress
need have little relevance to clothing origins. This does not discount social factors—
and interactions between thermal and social factors—in the development of more
sophisticated forms of clothing (e.g., Hayden 1998, pp. 32–37).
The other major psychological explanation is a sense of shame about the unclad
body (e.g., Ellis 1936, pp. 46–53; Morris 1986, pp. 62–63); a need for societies to
control the “potentially disruptive consequences” of human sexuality (Sahlins 1960,
pp. 78–80) is invoked specifically as the cause for clothing by Taylor (1996, p. 7).
Together with protection from superstitious fears, such motives are mentioned
frequently in the literature among the many causes championed for clothing origins
(e.g., Dunlap 1928, pp. 68–69; Gill 1931, pp. 26–29; Bush and London 1960,
pp. 360–361; Ryan 1966, pp. 40–54; Horn and Gurel 1981, pp. 10–35; Kaiser 1997,
p. 17). The need for caution in drawing analogical inferences about human
prehistory from ethnographic studies of recent hunter–gatherers (Headland and Reid
1989; Murray and Walker 1988, pp. 276–277) is illustrated by Fischer (1966) who
examined the clothing habits of the Nuer in southern Sudan, among whom the use of
clothing is minimal. Fischer found that rules governing the use of clothing were
complex and changeable and he concluded that, on the subject of clothing origins,
“it is absolutely impossible to know anything” (p. 60)―although this did not prevent
him from invoking an existential version of modesty as prompting a tendency for
humans to “always create some cover” (p. 70). The Nuer, however, are pastoralists
and horticulturalists, with notions of physical shame (Beidelman 1968, p. 115) that
are generally less evident among habitually unclad hunter–gatherers. These latter
groups have been most frequently cited in arguments about clothing origins, and so a
brief critique of the ethnographic evidence is warranted.
Australian Aborigines
Humans reached Australia by at least 45,000 years ago (O'Connell and Allen 2004),
having traveled from Africa without needing to stray beyond the tropics (e.g.,
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Bulbeck 2007)—and without needing much clothing for protection from cold. An
extensive review of the ethnohistorical record confirms a typical absence of clothing
in Aboriginal Australia, with strong correlations between the use of indigenous
garments and climatic variables, notably wind chill (Gilligan 2008). A surprising
paucity of clothes among Aborigines exposed to cold, windy conditions on the isolated
southern island of Tasmania may result from enhanced biological cold adaptations
developed over 35,000 years of occupation (Gilligan 2007c), with archaeological
evidence pointing to greater use of clothes during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM;
Gilligan 2007d, pp. 107–109; cf., Hiscock 2008, p. 136). One exception to the thermal
role of clothing throughout Australia was the occasional presence of girdles among
females in northern coastal areas, probably reflecting an external cultural influence
from neighboring Papua New Guinea (Gilligan 2008, p. 492).
Khwe (Bushmen)
These hunter–gatherers used a loose cloak (the kaross) made from antelope skin as
protection from cold (van der Post and Taylor 1984, p. 86), and the cloaks served
additionally as blankets and bags. Most twentieth century accounts also describe
loincloths (e.g., Schapera 1930, pp. 65–66; Guenther 1986, pp. 115–119), although
the likely influence of contacts with nonforager populations should be borne in mind
(e.g., Barnard 1992, pp. 40–46). One early account is Sparrman (1785) who
described karosses but made no mention of loin coverings (vol. 1, p. 201). Rock art
evidence likewise suggests these are a recent acquisition: karosses are depicted in
rock paintings by Khwe ancestors dating back to the mid-Holocene, but loincloths
are rarely shown (Vinnicombe 1976, pp. 247–250).
Andaman Islanders
The archaeological record of the Andamans extends to around 2,000 years ago
(Cooper 2002), and external contacts appear limited prior to British settlement in
1858 (Cooper 1989). Early accounts document an absence of clothing (e.g.,
Colebrooke 1807, p. 390; Mouat 1863, p. 122; Temple 1901, p. 236), although
later reports place a greater emphasis on girdles and leaf aprons, especially among
women (e.g., Radcliffe-Brown 1922, pp. 476–483; Cutting 1932, p. 528), and such
items appear to have been adopted “only in comparatively recent times” (Cipriani
1966, p. 149). It is among the more remote groups that no clothing at all is worn
routinely—the Sentinelese, the Jarawa, and to a lesser extent, the Onge (Man 1932,
pp. 109–111; Sarker 1990, pp. 8–10; Mukerjee 2003).
Tierra del Fuego
Archaeological evidence for humans in the southernmost area of South America
dates from around 11,000 years ago (Borrero and McEwan 1997). Early European
observers were astonished by how the local inhabitants managed with only simple
capes and cloaks, often wearing nothing at all (e.g., Darwin 1839, pp. 234–235;
Byron, in Gallagher 1964, p. 80), especially the Yahgan and Alaculef (Cooper 1917,
pp. 193–194; Lothrop 1928, pp. 121–123). Osteological analyses indicate a degree of
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
29
morphological cold adaptation among Fuegan groups (e.g., Hernández et al. 1997),
probably accompanied by the physiological measures—such as acclimatization—
documented among other cold-exposed modern groups, enhancing their capacity to
cope with cold stress and reducing their need for clothes. However, studies in thermal
physiology confirm that any such physical adaptations confer only limited benefits,
and the level of cold tolerance shown by Fuegans does not undermine a thermal model
for clothing origins, as has been claimed (e.g., Horn and Gurel 1981, p. 25; Barthes, in
Carter 2003, p. 153). The thermal use of simple clothes among habitually unclad
groups such as the Yahgan demonstrates how humans, even if adapted maximally in
biological terms, must adopt behavioral strategies to survive when certain environmental thresholds are approached. The ethnographic evidence from the Fuegan and
other groups discussed here does, however, show how hunter–gatherers can manage
psychologically and socially without clothes.
The Biological Basis
A thermal model shifts the focus to the available biological, environmental, and
archaeological data and draws attention to two fundamental facts. One is the unusual
vulnerability of modern humans to cold. The other is the environmental context of the
Pleistocene, namely, a series of ice ages, which exposed our vulnerability. Together, these
two facts comprise a compelling biological basis for the initial acquisition of clothing.
The most obvious aspect of our cold susceptibility is a reduced mass of body hair
compared to most other mammals. Birds and mammals maintain high and relatively
constant body temperatures by endothermic (heat-generating) methods and reduce
heat loss by means of feathers or fur. The monotremes (platypus and echidna) and
marsupials (e.g., possums and kangaroos) tend to have lower body temperatures and
metabolic rates and can tolerate lower environmental temperatures (Dawson 1973).
Aquatic and amphibious mammals, ranging from diving otters to polar bears and
whales, are more tolerant of cold than land mammals, and many are protected from
the severe thermal stress of water by thick water-proof fur (Fanning and Dawson
1984). Those that are hairless, such as whales and porpoises, are adapted for cold by
having very high metabolic rates and thick layers of insulating fat (Irving 1973). The
hippopotamus is a special case, being a large naked land mammal that uses
amphibious habits to keep cool in the tropical heat. The naked mole rat of eastern
Africa is also unusual in this regard, but these ectothermic, eusocial rodents live in
warm underground burrows with a stable ambient temperature of around 30°C. They
rarely need to cope with cold, which they achieve by basking in warmer soil and
huddling together in groups (Alexander 1991; Sherman et al. 1992). Although some
other mammals are hairless, modern humans are certainly unusual in having lost
their fur without acquiring specific compensatory mechanisms to conserve body heat
in cold conditions. It may be true that we have the same number of hair follicles as
most other extant primates (Montagna 1985) and have more hair on the scalp and in
the groin, but we have a greatly reduced volume of body hair for our size. In
evolutionary biology, a long and largely speculative debate has continued since
Darwin's time as to the reason our ancestors lost the cover of body fur that typifies
mammals in general.
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Gilligan
Theories of Nakedness
Darwin held that a reduced cover of hair was of no “direct advantage” to our
ancestors, perhaps even “in a slight degree injurious,” but was inherited because
it was sexually esteemed, as with “the plumes of some birds” (Darwin 1871, 2,
pp. 376–377). To support this idea he cited sexual dimorphism, males being
relatively more hirsute. Another view that continues to enjoy widespread popularity
(e.g., Lupi 2008, p. 10) is that reduced fur cover led to reduced heat stress on the
African Savannah, but body hair also insulates against heat, serving as portable
shade (Newman 1970). This explains the retention of head hair (cf. Neufeld and
Conroy 2004) and our copious—and, in terms of water requirements, expensive—
capacity for sweating to compensate for the additional heat stress. The disadvantage
of reduced body hair on the savannah may have been offset by bipedalism, as
Wheeler (1996) suggests. Other theories posited (and resurrected) over the years
include the aquatic and parasitic hypotheses, but all have obvious weaknesses and, at
the present time, the adaptive significance―if any―of our reduced fur cover
remains debatable (Rantala 2007).
Pedomorphism
Neither natural nor sexual selection need have played a direct, active role in the
emergence of nakedness: perhaps, it was selectively neutral, at least at the outset.
One distinct possibility is that it could have evolved passively as part of a general
trend in hominin evolution towards pedomorphism or neoteny (De Beer 1940;
Montagu 1962; Groves 1989, pp. 310–314; cf. Churchill 1998). This means that
ontogenic development is delayed and mature adults of a species retain child-like
traits. Our lack of fur, large brain, and some anatomical aspects of upright posture
may be developmentally juvenile, but the question arises as to what overall
advantage this might have conferred. One suggestion is that it could comprise part of
an ecological strategy known as K-selection where low reproductive rates and long
life spans are favored in stable, generally tropical environments; in hominins, the
prolonged infant learning that this permitted may have enhanced socialization and
behavioral flexibility (Gould 1977, pp. 320–324, 344–351, 399–404). Whatever its
causes, the heightened risk of hypothermia that accompanied a reduction in fur cover
was probably of little consequence for early African hominins, yet it was to assume
great significance as their descendants spread out from the tropics during the
Pleistocene.
Timing of Body Hair Loss
Aside from the problem of establishing why we became naked in a biological sense,
there is the question of when it happened, which is especially pertinent to the
thermal origins of clothing. Unfortunately, not unlike the poor archaeological
visibility of prehistoric clothing, reduced hair cover is a soft tissue trait which fails to
leave direct evidence in the fossil record—one reason why it arouses scant interest in
paleoanthropology. It has been suggested that bipedalism favored reduced body hair
and sweating for thermoregulatory reasons, which would place the origin of our
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
31
nakedness at a very early stage in hominin evolution and also favor dark skin color
as the ancestral condition for Homo—the skin color of other primates with more
body hair, such as chimpanzees, being light (Jablonski and Chaplin 2000, pp. 58–59;
Jablonski 2004, pp. 599–600). Human genetic studies which have addressed this
question vary widely in their estimates of when Homo lost its fur cover and
developed more heavily pigmented skin, ranging from approximately 240,000 years
ago (Winter et al. 2001) to at least 1.2 million years ago (Rogers et al. 2004).
Genetic studies on the various species of parasitic lice that infest the hair of higher
primates, including humans, may prove helpful in shedding further light on the
timing of human body hair loss. Modern humans are unusual with respect to these
parasites in that we are host to three kinds of lice, whereas our nearest relatives,
chimpanzees and gorillas, each carry only a single species of lice. The three kinds of
human lice are head, body, and pubic lice, and their differing evolutionary histories
as revealed by genetic analyses may be relevant not only to the origin of human
nakedness but also—surprisingly—to the origin of clothing. The reason why lice can
inform us about when our ancestors began wearing clothes is that so-called body lice
(Pediculus humanus humanus, belonging to the same species as head lice, Pediculus
humanus capitis) has a most unusual ecological niche: it lives on clothing.
It is the third kind of lice, however, which may inform us as to when our
ancestors became biologically “naked.” Pthirus pubis (pubic lice) is a separate
species to head and body lice and its nearest relative is Pthirus gorillae, which
infests the gorilla. It appears likely that humans acquired pubic lice from gorillas
long after the human and gorilla lineages last shared a common ancestor (at least
seven million years ago), with the results of recent studies estimating that the
acquisition of pubic lice occurred around three million years ago (Reed et al. 2007;
Light and Reed 2009). It is suggested that this host switch was only possible once
our ancestors lost their body hair, with human lice retreating to a specific niche (the
head), leaving the groin niche open to colonization by another lice species. If this
interpretation of the findings is valid—and it seems the most parsimonious, given
the more complex scenarios entailed with alternative interpretations (Reed et al.
2007, p. 6)—then it suggests our ancestors lost their cover of body hair quite early,
by around three to four million years ago. This would place the loss of body hair
very early in the Homo lineage, before the appearance of Homo ergaster. A date of
around three million years ago coincides with the Pliocene, when global temperatures were substantially warmer and more stable than in the Quaternary—and well
before any reduced fur cover would become less adaptively neutral with the onset of
the Pleistocene ice ages.
Body Lice and Clothing Origins
The divergence of body (clothing) lice from head lice appears much more recent,
judging from the genetic studies of Pediculus humanus. The date for the split will
relate to the adoption of clothing worn on a regular basis that has persisted up to the
present, and it does not preclude the sporadic use of clothing in the more distant past
(since any body lice associated with such clothing would presumably become extinct
when clothing was abandoned). In the thermal model proposed here, dating the
origin of present-day body lice will most likely relate to the time when humans first
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adopted complex clothing that has persisted in use (for social as well as thermal
reasons) up to the present. The first genetic analyses of body lice yielded dates for
the origin of clothing between 72,000 and 107,000 years ago, corresponding to a
series of cold episodes following the last interglacial (Kittler et al. 2003, 2004)
which included the very cold period from around 75,000 year ago. Although the
methodology of these studies has been criticized (Reed et al. 2004) and the
biomolecular date for the origin of clothing based on body lice is currently
considered uncertain (Reed, personal communication), recent work estimates a
divergence of head lice from body lice around 90,000 years ago, which would place
the adoption of clothes used on a regular basis up to the present in one of the cold
phases early in the last ice age (Light and Reed 2009, p. 386).
Considered collectively, the genetic studies on human lice favor an early date for
the loss of body hair cover, probably by around three million years ago, and a
comparatively late date for the time when humans first adopted clothing that has
continued in use up to the present. It would appear that Homo has been thermally
“naked” from the outset and would at times have required the use of clothes as a
behavioral adaptation to cold exposure in circumstances when environmental
conditions exposed that thermal vulnerability. However, it was not until after the
last interglacial, around 90–100,000 years ago, that clothing came into more-or-less
continuous use among at least some modern human groups. During the Upper
Pleistocene, thermal conditions promoted the development of complex clothing,
which began to acquire psychosocial functions that have helped to maintain its
continuing use up to the present.
The Paleoenvironmental Context
A thermal model draws attention not only on our unusual biological vulnerability to
cold, it grants equal emphasis to the dominant feature of the paleoenvironmental
record of the Quaternary—namely, a prolonged series of severe cold episodes which
rendered that vulnerability more relevant to our survival. It suggests also that the
archaeological record contains considerable indirect evidence for clothing (Table IV),
and the temporal and geographical patterning of these archaeological markers should
reflect fluctuating thermal conditions.
Specifically, it is feasible to stipulate environmental conditions that would favor
an increasing use of simple clothes and promote a transition from simple to complex
Table IV Pleistocene Clothing: Potential Archaeological Evidence
Technologies
Scraping, cutting and piercing implements (e.g., scrapers, blade-based lithics,
awls, and needles)
Raw materials
Faunal/plant exploitation (e.g., faunal targeting)
Body part distributions (e.g., suggesting skin separation)
Inferred presence
Known physiological limits to human cold tolerance
Reconstructed thermal conditions/minimal clothing levels
Anatomical
Morphological cold adaptations, other (e.g., use of shoes)
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33
clothing. Advances in paleoenvironmental sciences using ice core, speleotherm, and
other proxy records permit the reconstruction of past thermal parameters, such as
estimates for minimum temperatures and wind chill levels, with increasing resolution
(e.g., Lowe and Walker 1997; Grootes et al. 2001; Fairchild et al. 2006; Prins et al.
2007; Wang et al. 2008; Wetterich et al. 2008). In conjunction with known
thresholds and limits of human cold tolerance, these data can be used to assess the
extent to which changing patterns of human behavior documented in the
archaeological record may be interpretable as cold adaptations.
Temperature Trends
Figure 4a shows a generalized temperature curve for the last glacial cycle. The last
interglacial, Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e, began around 130,000 years ago and
was warmer than the Holocene. Indeed, it may have been the warmest and longest of
any interglacial since MIS 11 around 400,000 years and it probably allowed modern
humans to become more established in temperate latitudes. Following MIS 5e, there
are two cold episodes (MIS 5d and MIS 5b), then MIS 4 (a very cold period
approximately 75,000 to 60,000 years ago). The beginning of the last ice age around
120,000 years ago (MIS 5d) is often considered a relatively mild cool episode, as is
MIS 5b around 90,000 years ago—with MIS 4 considered by some to mark the
onset of the last ice age—yet various proxies (such as alkenone-derived sea-surface
temperatures) show quite substantial cooling during both MIS 5d and MIS 5b (e.g.,
Yamamoto et al. 2007, p. 408). Notable also is the increasing frequency, suddenness,
and severity of the temperature swings, culminating in a series of “abrupt, whiplash”
fluctuations of great magnitude late in MIS 3 (Macdougall 2006, p. 205), leading
into the LGM (MIS 2). The magnitude and, at times, sheer rapidity of these
environmental upheavals would be challenging for many reasons (Stringer et al.
2003; Sepulchre et al. 2007), but it has special significance for cold stress.
Wind Proxies
Oxygen and other isotope proxies relate to temperature, but the second main
component of cold stress is wind velocity. Paleoenvironmental proxies for wind are
poor in comparison to the well-studied isotope proxies for temperature. Perhaps the
best available wind proxy is dust (Fig. 4b)—stronger winds result in more atmospheric
dust (loess being the classic example), but aridity can also contribute to the dust record
(e.g., Delmonte et al. 2004, p. 79). Fortunately, the effects of aridity and wind velocity
can be separated by analyzing particle size—stronger winds carry heavier, larger
particles (Fig. 4c), and glacial periods are characterized by larger dust particles (e.g.,
Xiao et al. 1995). One long-term dust analysis (spanning 740,000 years ago to the
present) is from Dome C in East Antarctica (EPICA Community Members 2004).
This shows a marked difference for the last ice age: more dust than preceding
glaciations, with a peak in late MIS 3–MIS 2, and it is likely that at least a proportion
of this additional dust is attributable to more intense atmospheric circulation, creating
colder wind chill levels and hence greater cold stress for humans (Fig. 4d).
A fundamental factor affecting average global wind velocity is the temperature
difference between the equatorial and polar zones. During ice ages, the poles cooled
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Gilligan
Fig. 4 Thermal trends during the last glacial cycle and the Holocene. a Generalized midlatitude mean
temperature change (in degrees Celsius) from present, based on isotope records from Vostok, Antarctica
(Petit et al. 1999), GISP2, Greenland (Johnsen et al. 2001), and EPICA Dome C, Antarctica (EPICA
Community Members 2004); b aeolian dust volume record (in milligrams per square meter per year) from
Dome C (Lambert et al. 2008, p. 617); c median dust particle size (in micrometers) in the central Chinese
Loess Plateau as an average winter wind strength proxy (Xiao et al. 1995, p. 26); d hypothetical wind chill
levels (arbitrary units) based on the temperature and dust records.
more than the tropics, so the temperature difference was greater and ice ages were
generally windier—especially in the middle latitudes. There was a marked
hemispheric difference: the larger total oceanic mass in the southern hemisphere
provided higher thermal resistance (i.e., slower heat loss) than land, and so acted as a
heat sink. For this reason, the temperature difference between lower and higher
latitudes on continental land masses was greater in the middle latitudes of the
northern hemisphere where steeper temperature (atmospheric pressure) gradients
resulted in stronger winds (Fig. 5). The intertropical convergence zone, which
straddles the equator during interglacials, was shifted southwards into the southern
hemisphere by the colder northern hemisphere, producing wetter conditions in the
subtropics of South America (Zech et al. 2009, p. 133)—in effect, the world's
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
35
Fig. 5 Water has greater thermal resistance than solid land, and so the greater oceanic mass in the
southern hemisphere acts as a heat sink during ice ages. This results in smaller latitudinal temperature (air
pressure) gradients on continental land masses in middle latitudes (hence lower average wind strength and
less severe wind chill) compared to the northern hemisphere. In the polar zones, however, the situation is
reversed: the large continental land mass of Antarctica creates colder temperatures at the South Pole than
at the North Pole where the climate is influenced by the moderating effect of the Arctic Ocean.
climatic “equator” moved south. During ice ages, continental zones in the northern
hemisphere were generally not only colder but also windier (with correspondingly
more severe wind chill) and, given also the greater proportion of habitable land
surface lying outside the tropics, we should anticipate a more intense development of
prehistoric clothing in the northern hemisphere.
Archaeological evidence of the need for protection from the wind is seen
clearly during the LGM on the exposed plains of the Ukraine and Russia where
people made large shelters from hides and mammoth bones, often building the
structures partly below ground level for added protection from wind chill (Klein
1973, pp. 121–122). Likewise, even in the milder southern hemisphere, protection
from wind chill was probably one reason for the concentrated human occupation of
caves in Tasmania's southwest highlands during the LGM (Gilligan 2007a). Indeed,
notwithstanding the popular image of prehistoric people as cave-dwellers, humans
(like other primates) generally avoided living in caves until well into the Middle
Pleistocene. During ice ages, however, the distinct thermal advantages (particularly
protection from cold winds) offered by caves would have been “critical considerations”
in luring humans into caves (Collins 1976, pp. 104–105).
Rates of Change
Another climatic factor is the rapidity of temperature changes during ice ages: more
rapid swings will cause stronger winds, especially when the changes are of high
magnitude. Besides the dust record, further evidence is provided by another proxy,
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Gilligan
the effect of wind on oceanic circulation—notably the upwelling of deep-sea
microorganisms to the ocean surface due to stronger winds during glacial periods
(e.g., Wunsch 1998; Jian et al. 2001; Freudenthal et al. 2002). In particular, abrupt
cold episodes appear to be associated with higher surface wind speeds (e.g.,
Montoya and Levermann 2008). The likely scenario is that the brief cold oscillations
(notably in late MIS 3) signify stronger winds, and the implications for
corresponding wind chill levels are dramatic (Gilligan 2007e, pp. 505–506). In
terms of wind chill, thermal conditions during these cold spikes may have been more
dangerous for humans than the LGM. While conditions during MIS 2 in the northern
midlatitudes clearly demanded complex clothes, there were earlier periods of
intensified wind chill when mean temperatures in some regions fell by between 5°C
and 10°C, including MIS 5b (around 90,000 years ago). It is during these periods of
cold stress (particularly MIS 4 and, subsequently, late MIS 3) that we can anticipate
early technological and other archaeological correlates of clothing and precocious
signs of complex clothing.
The presence of stronger winds and rapid fluctuations during the colder phases of
the last glacial cycle is well-documented in a continuous high-resolution dust record
from Serbia spanning 120,000 to 15,000 years ago (Antoine et al. 2009). This shows
not only a marked increase in the ratio of coarse to fine particle sizes during MIS 4
and late MIS 3–MIS 2, but in the latter period a series of unusually brief but intense
millennial-timescale loess event (LE) episodes indicating high-frequency variations
in wind strength, consistent with “abrupt increases in the aeolian dynamics” and
“rapid climatic variability” (ibid., p. 34). The distinctive feature of MIS 3 is the
magnitude and rapidity of the climatic swings. While often characterized as a
relatively “warm” period, the MIS 3 interstadial lasted only until 45,000 years ago—
with a brief interval around that time when pollen records suggest prevailing
conditions in France were “fairly close to those existing today”—after which a series
of dramatic fluctuations with “very low minimum temperatures” created conditions
that at times were probably similar to those of the LGM (van Andel 2003, p. 11).
Seasonal and Diurnal Extremes
One of the major limitations of paleoenvironmental proxies in terms of reconstructing thermal stresses for prehistoric humans is the problem of inadequate temporal
resolution, particularly in relation to estimating the likely seasonal and diurnal
extremes that would have been of most physiological relevance. While the massive
millennial-scale climatic swings such as LEs represent “rapid” fluctuations by
paleoenvironmental standards, the thermal challenges posed to human survival
operated not over millennia, nor even centuries or single years, but in relation to
physiological dangers (e.g., hypothermia), over timescales that are measured in days
and sometimes hours. Existing proxies are incapable of achieving resolutions
approaching such timescales, of course—correlating oscillations between different
proxy records at centennial to millennial timescales is largely “hypothetical” (van
Andel 2003, p. 14). There is the added problem of needing to estimate the likely
thermal extremes—including very brief extremes—that would ultimately determine
survival prospects and test the adequacy of thermal adaptations to cold stress.
Marked seasonal temperature variation is a feature of temperate regions and, even
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
37
during the present interglacial, modern humans can be at risk of death from
hypothermia in middle latitudes if caught unexpectedly outdoors on a cold winter
night without sufficient clothing. Recent methodological advances have allowed
modeling of seasonal as well as average annual temperature variations during the
late glacial in Europe (e.g., Barron et al. 2003, pp. 64–65), but estimating the likely
extreme minimums associated with these conditions (which have no present-day
climatic analogs) remains essentially a matter of guesswork.
During the colder phases of the last ice age, it was not simply the fall in mean
annual temperatures that constituted the “cold crisis” (Otte 1990). The capacity to
endure the extremes of any climatic regime is what determines whether a species can
survive (Folk 1981, p. 165), and it was the likelihood of occasional thermal extremes
that most directly affected the survival chances of humans. With mean temperatures
falling 10–15°C below interglacial levels across much of midlatitude Eurasia during
the LGM, the seasonal and daily extremes were correspondingly more severe, and it is at
these times that human survival would have been most tangibly threatened. For weeks
and perhaps months at a time, estimated mean winter temperatures plunged below −20°C
in some areas occupied by modern humans during the LGM (Davies and Gollop 2003,
pp. 138–140). The stronger winds that swept continental Eurasia during the colder
times added a significant wind chill factor, further lowering effective temperatures and
placing added demands on the insulatory capacities of clothing.
Archaeological Visibility in the Pleistocene
While the archaeological record yields no direct evidence of paleolithic clothing in
the form of preserved clothing remains, there are artifacts used in the manufacture of
clothing (notably eyed needles), as well as artistic depictions of clothed humans and
also clothing-related items such as buttons and beads. Another well-recognized
archaeological indicator is the faunal targeting of fur-bearing species such as wolves
and Arctic foxes. However, these visible archaeological signatures are restricted
largely to middle latitudes during the LGM and are discussed later. The thermal model
outlined here implies that clothing first came into existence prior to that time and that
the changing physiological need for clothing in the context of fluctuating climatic
conditions can be linked plausibly to discernable alterations in the large-scale patterning
of technological assemblages throughout the late Pleistocene and even earlier.
The specific claim of this thermal model is that the development of artificial
protection should be accompanied by archaeological evidence for the increasing use
of implements serving to facilitate the preparation of animal hides for clothing—
scraping tools in the case of simple clothes, with the addition of cutting and piercing
tools for complex clothes. While even simple flake tools can serve all these functions
to some extent, the more regular use of clothes required for the sustained (i.e., yearround) occupation of cooler climatic zones should favor the emergence of tool forms
that could reflect a greater emphasis on the efficient preparation of animal hides.
Given the multipurpose role of most tool forms, with at best a loose connection
between tool form and any particular function such as hide-scraping, only modest
(or, more correctly, probabilistic) associations between climatic conditions and
trends in tool morphology can be anticipated. Nonetheless, the model proposed here
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Gilligan
predicts that such associations should be discernible. Without appropriate technological developments, early hominins should be restricted to regions having warmer
climatic regimes—generally, lower latitudes, with entry to middle and especially
higher latitudes limited to interglacials. Any evidence for a human presence in cooler
environments during the Pleistocene should be accompanied by trends in lithic and
other technologies that reflect an increasing focus on the manufacture of suitable
clothing.
Early Hominins and Environmental Limits
When physiological principles are taken into consideration, the geographical spread
of early hominins who lacked clothing into regions outside the subtropics should
occur during the warmer phases of the Pleistocene, namely, interglacials. While the
tropics remained habitable throughout the Pleistocene, occupation of middle latitudes
during cooler episodes would require at least seasonal use of simple clothing. A
sustained presence in these latitudes—particularly during colder stadials—would be
feasible only with the regular use of clothing and—depending on variations in local
conditions and species-specific physiological thresholds—would favor the development
of more thermally effective clothes. In terms of lithic technologies, this should be
accompanied by a shift towards greater control of flake production and the manufacture
of scraping implements, supplemented by an increasing emphasis on cutting and piercing
functions with the advent of complex clothes. The extent to which these predictions are
borne out by archaeological evidence will now be explored, making due allowance for
the interpretive ambiguities posed both by the available archaeological data and also the
limitations of paleoenvironmental proxies (and the degrees of temporal and geographical
resolution that can be achieved) for reconstructing past climatic conditions.
Lower Pleistocene
The thermal model predicts increased utilization of scraping implements well before
the last glacial cycle, in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene, as hominins spread out
of Africa to Asia and Europe. Their ability to tolerate cooler conditions was enhanced by
control of fire, which dates from at least 800,000 years ago to judge by evidence from
Israel (Goren-Inbar et al. 2004). In western Eurasia, hominin remains and Oldowanlike flake and chopper tools occur in Lower Pleistocene contexts, possibly around
1,800,000 years ago, at Dmanisi (42° N) in Georgia (Gabunia et al. 2000). A number
of southern European sites date from around 1,200,000 years ago, such as Sima del
Elefante in Spain, which has hominin remains, Oldowan technology, and paleoenvironmental proxies indicating a generally warm and humid interglacial environment
(Rosas et al. 2006, p. 344; Carbonell et al. 2008). Hominin remains are also welldocumented in Spain during an interglacial around 900,000 years ago at the Gran
Dolina cave site (Bermúdez de Castro et al. 1997; Berger et al. 2008, p. 309), while a
hominin presence in Italy 900–800,000 years ago is demonstrated by the Ceprano
calvarium and nearby sites with chopper industries (Ascensi et al. 2000). In eastern
Asia, hominins may have reached the equatorial island of Java early in the Lower
Pleistocene (Swisher et al. 1994). They had crossed the latitude of 30° N in China
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
39
during late Lower Pleistocene times, with choppers and flake tools (including
scrapers) occurring at a number of sites before 1,000,000 years ago (Keates 1994).
Middle Pleistocene
Hominin expansion into north middle latitudes during interglacial phases of the
Middle Pleistocene is documented at the British site of Boxgrove, with its human
tibia and hand axes dated to 500–400,000 years ago (Roberts et al. 1994). Other
British sites are assigned to the MIS 11 interglacial, including Elveden, which has
hand axes and some flake tools but “very few classic scrapers” (Ashton et al. 2005,
pp. 44–45). The cave site of Cueva Negra in Spain, with its pre-Neanderthal remains
and blend of Acheulian and Levalloisian artifacts, also dates to an interglacial (either
MIS 13 or MIS 11) 500–400,000 years ago (Walker et al. 2006, pp. 25–26). In
China, the Zhoukoudian cave (40° N) was occupied by hominins using chopper and
flake tools (and probably fire) during the Middle Pleistocene—with mammal species
typical of an interglacial fauna (Pope 1988). The Korean peninsula has yielded a
number of sites with choppers and flake tools (and also a few sites with scrapers)
which might date from 500 to 350,000 years ago, although they may be younger
than 200,000 years ago (Lee 2001, p. 135).
While it appears that hominins first ventured into the middle latitudes of Eurasia
during warmer interglacials in the Lower Pleistocene, in the Middle Pleistocene,
there is archaeological evidence for their presence not just in warm intervals but also,
increasingly, during prolonged cool periods and even glacial ones. They survived
during the penultimate ice age in northeastern France at Biâche-Saint-Vaast (Aitken
and Valladas 1992), which has scraper tools; Levallois industries are documented in
England at the Lion Pit site from late in MIS 8 and during the comparatively cool
MIS 7 interglacial (Schreve et al. 2006). No tools have been recovered from Sima de
los Huesos in Spain, but this site with numerous hominin remains is dated by its
rodent fauna to MIS 6 (Cuenca-Bescós et al. 1997). Hominins equipped with a flaked
cobble industry (containing occasional worked side scrapers) may have penetrated into
central Siberia at Diring Yuriakh (61° N) during MIS 9 (390–270,000 years ago), an
unusually warm interglacial when mean temperatures were 3–4°C higher than the
present (Waters et al. 1997). Sites with similar lower paleolithic cobble industries
occur in southern parts of the Russian Far East and may also date to the Middle
Pleistocene (Derevianko et al. 2006). Flake-dominated middle paleolithic industries
later appeared in central Siberia during the warmer phases of the last interglacial
(MIS 5e and 5c), but cultural remains are absent during the cold MIS 4; a more
extensive human presence with scrapers, blades, and bone points (including
needles) was established during MIS 3, although an absence of archaeological
evidence suggests central Siberia was again abandoned during the coldest stage
of MIS 2 (Chlachula 2001).
Clothing and Lithic Technologies
In addition to advocating a thermal origin for clothing that allows the use of
physiological parameters in concert with paleoenvironmental data to render the
40
Gilligan
development of paleolithic clothing more visible, this thermal model makes a
distinction between simple and complex clothing and proposes that this distinction
relates to major trends in the patterning of paleolithic technologies that are
documented in the archaeological record. Simple and complex clothing differ not
only in their physiological qualities (particularly their capacity to protect the body
from colder temperatures and wind chill), but also in the extent to which their
manufacture involves scraping, cutting, and piercing activities. It is proposed that
these differing manufacturing requirements will be reflected in the preserved toolkits.
Since, in this model, the development of clothing accompanied the increasing exposure
of hominins to cooler climatic conditions during the Pleistocene, the proposed clothingrelated trends in lithic technologies should similarly coincide with their exposure to
changing environmental—namely, thermal—conditions.
A number of difficulties present themselves in exploring these hypothesized
associations between lithics and clothing. The first relates to terminology, and the
second relates to the nature of the suggested causal relationships. With regard to
terminology, conventional terms such as scrapers and blades (and also broad
classifications of the paleolithic into subdivisions such as lower, middle, and upper
or Early, Middle, and Later Stone Age [LSA]) are based largely on tool morphologies
and manufacturing techniques rather than tool function(s)—yet the thermal model refers
essentially to shifts in the relative importance of tool functions which relate only
indirectly to tool morphologies. Moreover, reworking of tools can alter their
morphology—for instance, scrapers were transformed into burins (and vice versa) by
retouch in the Dabba phase at Haua Fteah (Hiscock 1996). The terms are also
encumbered by outdated progressive connotations, whereas the thermal model is
strictly adaptive, allowing for both increases and decreases in the relative importance
of clothing-related tool functions consistent with fluctuating environmental circumstances. Similar deficiencies and unwarranted connotations pertain to the term
“modern human behavior,” discussed later.
The second issue relates to the nature of the proposed causal relationships
between changes in the manufacturing demands of clothing and trends in paleolithic
technologies. Given the loose associations between tool forms and functions and the
many variables—including physiological, climatic, and ecological (in terms of both
faunal and lithic raw material resources)—that will influence the relationships, not to
mention the uncertainty with which these can be estimated or assessed retrospectively,
the proposed causal relationships are inherently probabilistic, not deterministic. This has
crucial implications for testing the hypotheses against the archaeological record, since it
requires adequate timescales, data sets, and analytic approaches—including, where
feasible, appropriate statistical methods.
Traditional typological categories can, therefore, prove at best only partially
reliable in this context. The manufacture of simple clothes will highlight the utility
of tools for scraping hides, and complex clothes will place an additional premium on
the processes of cutting and piercing, and these functions will correspond only
loosely to conventional morphological types. Flake tools are generally adequate for
these purposes, but the thermal model argues that adaptive pressures (especially
where human survival is at stake) will favor the production of tools that are more
efficient in performing these functions (e.g., Figs. 6 and 7). While descriptive
categories such as scrapers and blades (based primarily on shape) are not
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
41
Fig. 6 Side scraper from Hoxne
(top) and end scraper from
Timonovka (bottom), with
hide-working confirmed by use–
wear in both cases (redrawn
from Keeley 1980, p. 133, and
Semenov 1964, p. 88).
consistently related to function, the functional demands of scraping, cutting, and
piercing will ultimately favor tools whose shapes are recognized as scrapers, blades,
and points.
With these considerations in mind, the archaeological record of the latter part of
the Pleistocene will be reviewed with regard to technological developments and the
environmental contexts of those developments, within the conventional frameworks
of typological categories and paleolithic subdivisions. Attention is focused on the
42
Gilligan
Fig. 7 Blade tools dating to
MIS 4 from the Howiesons
Poort industry at Klasies River
Mouth, South Africa (redrawn
from Wymer 1982, p. 225).
timing (and environmental contexts) of the early appearance of the tool forms, as
well as their proliferation (in terms of quantification and relative proportions in tool
assemblages), augmented with findings from use–wear studies.
Middle Paleolithic
Formal middle paleolithic assemblages, dominated by various types of scrapers and
points, made their appearance in northern and southern Africa and in western
Eurasia to become particularly prevalent in those regions of the inhabited world most
affected by climatic changes (Gamble and Soffer 1990, p. 19). In South Africa, some
of the earliest Middle Stone Age (MSA) industries began around 280,000 years ago
(during MIS 8) at Florisbad (29° S), leading to a variant with high levels of retouch
dating to 160,000 years ago in MIS 6, the penultimate ice age (Kuman et al. 1999).
The middle paleolithic of the Levant begins around 250,000 years ago (Shea 2003),
and microscopic residues of hair, collagen, and blood (consistent with hide-working)
were detected on scrapers dating to 90,000 years ago (MIS 5b) at Tabun Cave in
Israel (Loy and Hardy 1992). Scrapers also occur in the Howieson's Poort industry
of southern Africa which includes small blade tools (Fig. 7), dating from
75,000 years ago, the beginning of the very cold MIS 4 (Singer and Wymer
1982). In Europe, the middle paleolithic dates from around 300,000 years ago with
Levallois core-preparation techniques and higher frequencies of retouched flake
tools (e.g., Ashton et al. 2003), and the increasing dominance of these technologies
in assemblages coincides with the colder conditions endured by hominins in these
higher latitudes through the last couple of glacial cycles. This is seen, for example, at
the Orgnac 3 site in southeastern France where the stratigraphic sequence, which
extends from the MIS 9 interglacial around 300,000 years ago into the MIS 8 glacial,
documents an increasing dominance of Levallois knapping and the production of
formal scraper tools associated with progressively cooler conditions (Moncel et al.
2005, pp. 1284–1286).
The extent to which chronological variation within the middle paleolithic
corresponds with environmental variation has been demonstrated in a major study
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
43
of tool frequencies in western Europe spanning some eight glacial cycles—almost
the entire Middle and Upper Pleistocene (Monnier 2006). Results show that bifaces
tend to be more common during interglacials (P=0.039) and the association of
scrapers with cold periods is highly significant (P=0.000; ibid., p. 727). Monnier
invokes the scraper reduction model (Dibble 1995) to explain these findings, with
access to raw materials being diminished (by snow or ice cover) during glacials. A
thermal model, in contrast, highlights the technological implications of clothing
requirements, with a gradual increase in scraper frequencies through the whole
sequence of glacial cycles, reflecting an improved capacity of hominins to adapt
behaviorally to cold stress. This shift from a core-shaping focus in the lower
paleolithic (e.g., production of hand axes) to prepared-core technologies aimed at
creating more consistent flake tools (often with increased retouch) may be linked not
only to greater mobility as humans specialized in the hunting of animals in migrating
herds, but equally to a “progressive adaptation of humans to more open and at times
cooler conditions” (White and Ashton 2003, p. 606). Within the middle paleolithic,
assemblages such as the “scraper-rich” Quina Mousterian have a “broad association”
with colder conditions and the exploitation of hide-bearing species such as reindeer,
and this is “highly suggestive” of a relationship to the manufacturing of clothing for
thermal protection (White 2006a, p. 559).
Upper Paleolithic
The precise cutting of skins required for complex clothes placed a premium on
technologies that reliably produced tools with sharp, durable cutting edges. The
upper paleolithic blades of late Pleistocene Europe, which involved a “prismatic
core” technology, maximized the usable cutting edge obtainable from flaking stone
cores. With their long, sharp cutting edges, these blades were useful in cutting meat,
wood, and other materials and were also well-suited for cutting hides into geometric
shapes that were joined together to make precisely fitted garment assemblages,
affording multilayered thermal insulation. Before being cut, hides had to be scraped
in order to render them clean and supple (more so than for simple, draped garments),
and the importance of end scrapers (often made on blades) for this purpose was
stressed by Semenov (1964, pp. 85–93).
Blade tools had appeared before the late paleolithic and evidently in association
with cool conditions, although their use in producing complex clothing would be a
matter of debate. Blade production waxed and waned in the Near East and in
southern and northern Africa (Marks 1990; Bar-Yosef and Kuhn 1999; Gopher et al.
2005), beginning towards the end of the very warm MIS 11 interglacial around
400,000 years ago. Early blade tools in Europe occur within middle paleolithic
assemblages at a number of sites in northern France, Belgium, and Germany dating
from the penultimate glaciation (MIS 6) and also spanning the cold episodes (MIS
5d-b) immediately following the last interglacial (Conard 1990; Delagnes and
Meignen 2006, pp. 95–96). In the European upper paleolithic, industries with blade
tools occur during the climatic swings late in MIS 3 by around 40,000 years ago at
the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria (Kozlowski 1982), while the middle paleolithic
persists until considerably later (around 34,000 years ago) in the milder region of
southern Iberia (Walker et al. 2008).
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Gilligan
In northeast Asia, production of blades defines the local late paleolithic which
begins in China with the onset of the LGM around 30,000 years ago (Gao and
Norton 2002, p. 409); likewise, in Japan, scrapers and blade tools appear during MIS
2 (Aikens and Higuchi 1982, pp. 35–94; Kaner 2002). In the Russian Far East,
macroblade industries define the early upper paleolithic, documented at Geographic
Society Cave (near Vladivostok) which has a series of radiocarbon dates between
>40,000 and 31,500 years ago, while the late upper paleolithic (defined by the
presence of microblades) is dated at two sites from around 19,000 years ago
(Kuzmin 2006). The technologies of early Native Americans were similar to those
used in Siberia. Blades and scrapers, as well as bone tools such as needles and
points, accompanied humans as they entered the New World from northeastern
Eurasia during the latter part of the last ice age. Evidence from archaeology, physical
anthropology, linguistics, and genetics has yet to resolve questions as to the number
of migrations, their timing, and the route(s) taken (e.g., Klein and Schiffner 2003).
One genetic study utilizing extensive population sampling favors a single, late
glacial colonization, probably along coastal routes (Wang et al. 2007a). Whatever
the case, the early immigrants would have needed sophisticated—i.e., complex—
clothes (Turner 2002, p. 145; Hoffecker 2005b, p. 188). Indeed, it was not until the
late Pleistocene, when the requisite technologies were developed to permit survival
in the coldest environments, that crossing the exposed Bering land bridge during a
glacial episode became feasible, and until then, the Americas remained unoccupied
by humans.
The extent to which the development and proliferation of upper paleolithic
technologies was associated with human exposure to colder conditions is debatable,
but an overall trend is evident, both in terms of the early occurrence of implements
suited to cutting and piercing animal hides during cooler phases and also the
intensification of their production in the middle latitudes of Eurasia during the late
Pleistocene, particularly the LGM. Ideally, a large-scale quantitative analysis of the
frequencies of tool forms such as various blade types and bone points in relation to
thermal fluctuations would be useful, along the lines of Monnier's (2006) study of
typological variation in the European middle paleolithic throughout the glacial
cycles of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. The possibility that blade production
may have varied in concert with climatic change is suggested by fluctuating patterns
in the archaeological record and is worthy of further investigation. For instance, in
the middle paleolithic of the Levant, blade production peaks in the early middle
paleolithic (Early MP), declines in the Middle MP and then “rebounds among some
Late MP assemblages” (Shea 2006, p. 195), coincident with human population
movements that were “driven by the wide swings of the Pleistocene climatic
pendulum” (ibid., p. 205). Many tool forms, such as spear points, denticulates, and
microlithic blades, are largely or entirely unrelated to the manufacture of clothing
and should have weaker or different climatic associations. Microliths, for example,
became especially common in many regions during the terminal Pleistocene and
early Holocene, and in some areas (such as parts of southern mainland Australia),
these derivative tools forms—often as components of composite tools—comprised a
dominant portion of lithic industries.
The global utility of this thermal approach is illustrated in late Pleistocene
Tasmania. The drop in mean temperatures in this region by around 6–8°C during the
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
45
LGM resulted in wind chill levels that demanded greater protection from cold than is
documented ethnographically, but thermal conditions were less severe than at
comparable latitudes in the northern hemisphere (Gilligan 2007d). The Tasmanian
archaeological record is consistent with the predictions of a thermal model: greater
use of caves and rock shelters, a focus on manufacturing scraper tools suitable for
preparing hides, the advent of bone points or awls for piercing the hides, and the
targeted hunting of the major local fur-bearing species, the red-necked wallaby.
The differential preservation of faunal remains suggests deliberate removal of the
wallaby skins (Cosgrove and Allen 2001), and studies of the dental growth patterns
in wallaby mandibles from one site (Warreen Cave) suggest that these caves and
rock shelters were occupied on a seasonal basis during the “coldest parts of the
year,” between autumn and early spring (Pike-Tay and Cosgrove 2002, p. 138). The
presence of bone awls corresponds to a need for sewing but, in the case of late
Pleistocene Tasmania, not to manufacture complex clothes. With only small pelts
available in the region, a number of hides would need to be joined together to make
an adequate, single-layer draped garment. Hence, the requirement for a dedicated
piercing implement, which, in the midlatitude environments of the northern hemisphere
where large hides were available, was a feature more of complex clothing in the upper
paleolithic. According to the thermal model, any use of complex clothing in Tasmania
should be associated with blade-based cutting tools—which, despite all the other
parallels with developments in the northern hemisphere, are conspicuous by their
absence in the milder LGM environments of Tasmania (Cosgrove and Allen 2001,
p. 399). Neither bone awls nor scraper-dominated lithic industries are found further
north in the warmer environments of Pleistocene Australia, and bone points disappear
entirely from the Tasmanian archaeological record during the early to mid-Holocene.
These trends are clearly consistent with predictions of the thermal model: the
disappearance of bone tools, for instance, reflects an abandonment of simple clothing
when climate ameliorated, whereas complex clothing would have been likely to
acquire nonthermal functions (such as decoration) which would have promoted its
persistence for social reasons.
Use–Wear Studies
Semenov (1964) pioneered the examination of tools for microscopic traces of wear
that allow inferences to be drawn as to the materials worked and, ideally, lead to
functional interpretations. The use–wear (or microwear) findings on paleolithic tools
are somewhat equivocal with respect to the relative importance of activities
associated with the manufacture of clothing, which is not unexpected given that
multiple functions are likely for most tool types—end scrapers and eyed needles
being exceptions that prove the rule. Even today, for example, people who use flakes
(such as the Duna in the New Guinea highlands) fail to use them in ways that reflect
formal archaeological typology (White and Thomas 1972). Similarly, use–wear
analysis has sometimes identified the polish typical of scraping fresh hide on
unmodified flint debitage (Juel Jensen 1988). Hide preparation can be more difficult
to detect compared to functions such as wood-working, with many early studies
using the Low Power Approach unable to readily distinguish hide-working from the
treatment of other soft materials such as meat. However, the High Power Approach
46
Gilligan
advocated by Keeley (1980) has facilitated the identification of the specific polish
and striations associated with hide-working. In recent decades, preparation of hides
has been frequently confirmed as one of the functions performed by both scraper and
blade tools, with hide-working sometimes also identified on other tools types such as
flint points (Fig. 8). The multipurpose role of most tools was clearly demonstrated in
a study of use–wear and residue analyses on early Aurignacian tools from Germany.
Virtually all the tools had been used on animal, plant, and wood materials; hideworking, while difficult to identify, was present (Hardy et al. 2008).
In the lower paleolithic, use–wear studies at Olduvai found “no direct evidence of
the working of hides” (Schick and Toth 1993, p. 161). At Hoxne in England,
occupied during an interglacial around 400,000 years ago, hide-scraping was the
main function identified on end scrapers (Keeley 1980, pp. 128–151), and scraper
tools dating to MIS 6 at Biâche-Saint-Vaast in France have use–wear corresponding
to hide-working (Beyries 1988). Use–wear on the Amudian blades dating from
380,000 years ago at Qesem Cave in Israel indicates they were used mainly for
butchering carcasses (Lemorini et al. 2006). This contrasts with the early upper
paleolithic at Ksar Akil in Lebanon dating from around 43,000 years ago (late in
MIS 3) where use–wear analyses of blades and end scrapers suggests that the site
was “a locus for processing hides” (Marks 1990, pp. 70–71). At the late upper
paleolithic French site of Verberie, use–wear analysis indicates that most scrapers
were used for scraping dry hides, and unmodified blade tools were used for cutting
hide as well as flesh (Symens 1986). At Paglicci Cave, a site in southern Italy
spanning the LGM, end scrapers were used “consistently” for scraping hides, and
other scrapers and blades were used mainly to cut hides or meat (Donahue 1988).
Many of the formal tool types (such as various scrapers and burins) served as cores
for the production of small blades: at the French Aurignacian site of Le Flageolet I,
82% of the scrapers and burins showed no microwear traces of use—although with
the remaining 18%, all showed polish interpreted as hide-working (Hays and Lucas
2000, pp. 461–462). In addition, use–wear consistent with the weaving of plant
fibers to make textiles which may have been used for clothing (as well as for making
Fig. 8 Flint points from Kostenki I, with use–wear traces of hide-working at their tips indicating they
were used as awls (redrawn from Semenov 1964, p. 102).
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
47
baskets, mats, cords, and nets) has been identified on bone battens and points from
Aurignacian and Gravettian industries (Soffer 2004).
At a late paleolithic Qadan site in Egypt, various bladelet, lunate, and
unretouched flake tools show traces of scraping for 90% of the tools inspected,
although there was little correlation between formal tool types and worked materials,
which included fresh hides, meat, wood, bone, and antler (Becker and Wendorf
1993). A specialized hide-working function, where the hides may have been treated
with a plant-based paste before scraping, is likely for the large gravers known as
“frits” found at early Neolithic sites in northwestern Europe (Sliva and Keeley
1994). In late Pleistocene Tasmania, use–wear analysis was performed by Fullagar
(1986) on tools from the Kutikina cave site, occupied between 20,000 and
15,000 years ago. The majority of tools examined were the typical “thumbnail
scrapers” with multiple functions being identified (sometimes on single tools),
including hide preparation in approximately half the cases (ibid., pp. 348–350).
The generally loose fit between tool morphology and function is demonstrated by
a use–wear study of burins, conventionally considered an engraving tool.
Microscopic analyses on hundreds of burins from the Moravian sites of Pavlov
and Willendorf (both spanning the LGM) revealed that the burin was more a byproduct of blade production and served also as an all-purpose pocketknife, with
nearly half the use–wear traces consistent with scraping and/or cutting organic
materials such as animal hides (Tomášková 2005). Hide-working is identified as the
predominant function of both scrapers and blades at Pavlov I but, consistent with
predictions of the thermal model, the inferred working motions for these tool types
were quite different: scrapers were used almost exclusively in a transverse (i.e., hidescraping) direction while blades were used almost exclusively in a longitudinal (i.e.,
hide-cutting) direction (Šajnerová-Dušková 2007, pp. 26–28). Not only does this
use–wear study illustrate the relative importance of hide-working compared to other
functions for these tools in the last ice age, the contrasting patterns of hide polish
reported for scrapers and blades suggest that the morphological distinction between
these basic tool forms corresponds to different hide-working functions. Clearly, in
the upper paleolithic, all the major tool forms such as scrapers, blades, and burins
performed multiple functions on various materials. Among the commonest of
functions was the preparation of animal hides. While this function cut across
typological categories, there are indications that scrapers were favored for the
scraping of hides, whereas blades were favored for cutting hides (Fig. 9), as
predicted by the thermal model.
Other Archaeological Evidence for Complex Clothing
Additional, nonlithic evidence for the thermal development of clothing—especially
complex clothing—derives from the archaeological record of the last ice age and
encompasses a range of artifact types and artistic representations (e.g., eyed needles
manufactured from animal bone, ornaments made from materials such as shell that
may have been sewn onto garments, and carved figurines that appear to depict
clothing). Another well-recognized archaeological indicator is faunal targeting:
analyses of bone elements at numerous eastern European sites, for instance, indicate
48
Gilligan
Fig. 9 Use–wear findings from
Pavlov I showing different hideworking functions for scrapers
and blades: scrapers (top) with a
transversal motion indicative
of hide-scraping and blades
(bottom) with a longitudinal
motion indicative of
hide-cutting (redrawn from
Šajnerová-Dušková 2007,
pp. 35–36).
careful separation of skins from the carcasses of fur-bearing species such as wolves
and Arctic foxes (Klein 1999, pp. 535–536). Mole rat skeletons lacking foot bones
from MSA layers at Die Kelders Cave in South Africa indicate that the skins from
small mammals may have been used as capes and other garments (Wymer 1982,
p. 174). Collectively, this additional evidence generally mirrors the environmental
patterning of the lithic developments considered above and is broadly consistent
with the proposed thermal model based on physiological and paleoenvironmental
parameters.
Eyed Needles and Awls
The late Pleistocene provides compelling evidence for technology associated with
complex clothing, including the “testimony” of the eyed needle which becomes
common in Gravettian and Solutrean industries (Fig. 10) during the European upper
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
49
Fig. 10 Eyed needles from the
Solutrean (dating to MIS 2) at
Grotte de Jouclas, France
(redrawn from White 1986,
p. 78).
paleolithic (de Sonneville-Bordes 1973, p. 54). Eyed needles need not be associated
exclusively with the manufacture of garments—ethnographic examples illustrate
their use for making other items such as bags, tents, and fishing nets—but their
initial occurrence in the environmental context of the last ice age is strongly
suggestive of their primary role in the provision of thermal protection at that time
(Semenov 1964, p. 100). Eyed needles in fact appear across the breadth of
midlatitude Eurasia, from western Europe to southern Siberia and northern China,
dating from the period of severe cold spikes in late MIS 3 and the LGM. The world's
oldest is “probably” from Kostënki 15 in Russia around 35,000 years ago (Hoffecker
2005a, p. 166). Other candidates include those from Denisova Cave in southern
Siberia where one date is >37,235 years ago, although stratigraphic uncertainties
place the needles more loosely between 43,000 and 28,500 years ago (Kuzmin and
Keates 2004, p. 142; Derevianko et al. 2005, p. 62; Zilhão 2007, pp. 12–13). There
are also needles from the Upper Cave at Zhoukoudian in northeastern China dating
to between 33,000 and 27,000 years ago (Chen and Olsen 1990, pp. 282–283). Eyed
needles occur at some of the earliest sites in North America, for instance, at Broken
Mammoth in central Alaska which dates to the Younger Dryas cold event around
50
Gilligan
13,000 years ago (Hoffecker 2005a, p. 117). Across Eurasia, the geographical
distribution suggests that the earliest eyed needles appeared in the colder continental
areas during late MIS 3, with later dates (during MIS 2, the LGM) for their first
appearance in western Europe.
Eyed needles are probably absent from the earliest European upper paleolithic
industry, the Aurigacian—notwithstanding one poorly documented report of “a
coarse form of eyed needle” recovered from “deposits of Middle Aurignacian date”
at Sergeac (Dordogne) early last century (Burkitt 1925, pp. 105–106). Given that the
Aurignacian spanned the cold episodes of late MIS 3, a lack of eyed needles in the
Aurigacian is puzzling yet, in itself, this does not signify an absence of complex
clothing. Eyed needles indicate an emphasis on making finely sewn garments, rather
than on sewing per se (which can be done simply using pointed awls, with the
threading performed by hand). Tightly sewn garments became more important as
wind chill levels increased, and eyed needles would also facilitate the finer sewing
required for making undergarments in multilayered clothing assemblages.
The absence of eyed needles in the earliest Aurignacian industries of western
Europe (Aurignacian I), dated to around 40,000–38,000 years ago, would
nevertheless be especially problematical for the thermal model if it coincided with
the very cold Heinrich event (H4) around 39,000 years ago. However, given the
complexities of calibrating radiocarbon determinations at sites within this time
period (e.g., Mellars 2006a) and given also the brief duration of H4—probably
<1,000 years and possibly 250 years (Roche et al. 2004)—no Aurignacian sites in
western Europe can be confidently assigned to the H4 Heinrich event. On the
contrary, based on recent revisions to the radiocarbon dates, the initial expansion of
the Aurignacian into western Europe appears to have occurred during a series of
somewhat milder climatic phases (corresponding broadly to the Hengelo interstadial)
from around 39,000 years ago (Mellars 2006b, p. 178). Paleoclimatologists place the
Hengelo interstadial between 38,000 and 36,000 years ago, following the Heinrich
event at 39,500 years ago (e.g., Burroughs 2005, p. 72).
While eyed needles are conventionally associated with “tailored” clothing (e.g.,
Hoffecker 2002a, p. 160), the piercing of hides for the sewing of fitted garments can
be accomplished with other, simpler pointed implements, notably awls made from
bone or flint (Semenov 1964, pp. 100–101; d'Errico, quoted in Balter 2004, p. 41).
Awls manufactured from bone—essentially, noneyed needles—are well-documented
in the Aurignacian (Fig. 11) beginning around 40,000 years ago, from France to
Russia (e.g., Anikovich et al. 2007; Charles et al. 2003; d'Errico et al. 2003; Wild
et al. 2005), and from 35 to 33,000 years ago in the Zagros Mountains, Iran (Otte
et al. 2007) and also in the early Aurigancian of the Levant (Belfer-Cohen and
Bar-Yosef 1981; Bergman 1988). In Africa, the earliest bone awls—perhaps the
earliest in the world—occur during the MSA at Blombos Cave, South Africa, in
levels assigned to MIS 5a/5b and towards the beginning of the very cold MIS 4,
between 84,000 and 72,000 years ago (d'Errico and Henshilwood 2007). Use–wear
analyses suggest that the vast majority (85%) of the MSA bone tools at Blombos
Cave functioned to “perforate fairly soft material such as well-worked hides,
possibly during the manufacture of clothing and/or carrying bags, and were probably
used in an “awl-like” action” (Henshilwoood et al. 2001, p. 662). One of the
“perplexing” aspects of the early bone technology in Africa, explained however by
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
51
Fig. 11 Aurignacian bone awl
from Yafteh Cave, Iran (left)
dating to around 35,000 years
ago and from the early
Aurignacian at Grotte du Renne,
France (right) around
32,000 years ago (redrawn from
d'Errico et al. 2003, p. 251, and
Otte et al. 2007, p. 89).
this paper's thermal model, is that it disappears from the archaeological record after
the end of the cold MIS 4 around 60,000 years ago, then remains absent during the
milder climatic phases of MIS 3, and reappears only in late MIS 3 after 40,000 years
ago (Backwell et al. 2008, p. 1576). Bone awls (and other bone tools, including eyed
needles) subsequently become common in LSA industries from around 30,000 years
ago, during the LGM. The fluctuating frequency of early bone awls in the African
archaeological record is consistent with predictions of the thermal model,
corresponding with an increased need for sewn, fitted garments during periods of
greater cold exposure.
The occurrence of bone awls in the Aurignacian and the MSA follows global
environmental trends, notably the major thermal fluctuations of the last glacial cycle,
and reflects one of the key technological requirements for the manufacture of
complex clothing, namely, the piercing of animal hides. In both the Aurignacian and
the MSA, the bone technologies coincide with the other key technological correlate
of complex clothing in this thermal model, namely, dedicated cutting implements in
the form of blade tools (which also disappear from the African archaeological record
during the milder climatic phases of MIS 3). The early, episodic advent of these
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Gilligan
technologies in Africa is consistent with the known thermal vulnerability and
clothing requirements of fully modern humans and represents a more cogent
rationale for the temporal and geographical patterning of these technological
developments than conventional models related to the emergence of modern human
behavior, as discussed below.
The advent of eyed needles, in this model, is associated with greater demands for
thermal insulation among fully modern humans in more extreme climatic conditions
and may relate, at least initially, not so much to the manufacture of fitted garments
but to an added emphasis on manufacturing the inner layers of multilayered garment
assemblages (and, possibly, the making of smaller items such as gloves to protect the
vulnerable fingers, also discussed below). Indeed, Semenov (1964, p. 100) suggested
that many needles are quite fragile and would be more useful for piercing the thinner
skins of small animals. The physiological significance of multiple clothing layers, as
discussed earlier, is that additional layers (up to four or more layers in the case of
modern-day garments) provide dramatic increases in Clo values. However, such
complex garment assemblages are only viable in terms of mobility and comfort if the
innermost layers are reasonably thin, soft, and pliable, and the sewing of such
materials entails comparatively delicate craftsmanship.
The distribution of eyed needles in terms of their temporal and geographical
patterning in the archaeological record of Eurasia is intriguing in that they do not
become common in the archaeological assemblages of western Europe until quite
late in the LGM—especially during the Solutrean around 21,000 years ago—
whereas in Russia and central Europe, eyed needles feature in the Eastern Gravettian
from around 29,000 years ago. This reflects milder winter minimum temperatures
associated with a more maritime climate in much of western Europe, in contrast to a
continental climate (with greater seasonal variation) in the northeast (Hoffecker
2002a, p. 194). The timing of the Solutrean is particularly interesting, corresponding
as it does with the coldest phase of the LGM in western Europe which dates also to
around 21,000 years ago. A “perfect chronological correlation” between the most
severe climatic phase of the LGM and the Solutrean suggests a “cause–effect
relationship” (Straus 2000, p. 48), with one of the “hallmark” features of the
Solutrean being eyed needles which facilitated “the sewing of fitted clothing” (ibid.,
p. 50). The thermal model emphasizes the need for humans to survive the likely
climatic extremes, and indeed, the pollen and other proxy data point to significantly
lower winter minimum temperatures in western Europe than in continental Eurasia at
that stage, challenging attempts to reconstruct a detailed picture of LGM conditions
in Europe using simulation models. Part of the problem is attributable to the fact that
there exist no present-day analogs for these midlatitude ice age environments, yet the
pollen data, for instance, are interpreted largely on the basis of present-day
ecological regimes. This has resulted in overestimates of the extent of winter
cooling—the Stage 3 Project, for example, concluded that Neanderthals must have
been capable of surviving extreme winter minimums, and so their survival would not
have been threatened thermally by the severe oscillations in late MIS 3 (Aiello and
Wheeler 2003; cf. Tzedakis et al. 2007). These errors have now been largely
corrected (for instance, by incorporating the effects on vegetation of lower
atmospheric CO2 during the LGM), although discrepancies remain between the
models and the paleoenvironmental data, notably in relation to estimates of winter
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
53
minimum (rather than mean annual) temperatures (e.g., Ramstein et al. 2007).
Nonetheless, there exists a widespread consensus view that winter minimum
temperatures in western Europe dropped markedly around 21,000 years ago,
coinciding with the proliferation of eyed needles in the Solutrean. One likely reason
for the colder winters is a major expansion of local Atlantic sea ice during a Heinrich
event (H2) around 22,000 years ago. This effectively created a more continental-like
climate—coupled probably with stronger, more variable winds due to steeper seasurface temperature gradients—on the adjacent land mass of western Europe
(Kageyama et al. 2006). Furthermore, there is a 1,000- to 2,000-year time lag
between the marine and terrestrial climatic signals of Heinrich events (Jennerjahn
et al. 2004). Given these recent paleoenvironmental findings, it becomes possible to
link the proliferation of eyed needles in the Solutrean very closely to a significant
decline in minimum winter temperatures (and to a corresponding increase in wind
chill stress) during the LGM.
Buttons, Beads, and Ornaments
Perforated disks made of stone and bone (sometimes decorated) that may have
served as buttons on garments (Fig. 12) are documented for the upper paleolithic
(Wymer 1982, p. 249; Ambrose 2001, p. 1752). From the French Magdalenian site
of Montastruc, there is an engraving of a man with small circles in a vertical line
from neck to waist (Fig. 13), possibly depicting a front-buttoned cloak, and buttonlike perforated bone disks occur at several Magdalenian sites (Collins 1986,
pp. 251–252). In terms of physiological insulation, the use of buttons allows more
flexible responses to thermal stresses, enabling garments to be readily opened
(in response, for example, to heat stress generated by high activity levels) or
enclosed (in response to colder temperatures and/or wind chill).
Perforated beads and decorative pendants (worn as bracelets or necklaces or sewn
onto clothing) become common in the African LSA and European upper paleolithic
(Fig. 14), and also in China, with more than a hundred pierced animal teeth
Fig. 12 Perforated bone disk
with engraving, possibly used as
a button, from the Magdalenian
at Laugeries Basse (Dordogne),
France (redrawn from Wymer
1982, p. 248).
54
Gilligan
Fig. 13 Engraving of a human
figure with a row of circles,
perhaps depicting a garment
with buttons, from the
Magdalenian at Montastruc,
France (redrawn from Wymer
1982, p. 256).
accompanying burials in the upper cave at Zhoukoudian (Wymer 1982, p. 249). In
Europe, beads are present from early in the upper paleolithic, from the beginning of
the Auriganacian, with the oldest being two pierced animal teeth at Bacho Kiro Cave
in Bulgaria, in a pre-Aurignacian level with a date of >43,000 years ago; in southern
Turkey, beads occur in the early upper paleolithic at Uçağızlı Cave dating to 43,000–
41,000 years ago (Kuhn et al. 2001). One survey of the distribution of Aurignacian
beads described some 157 distinct types from 98 sites stretching from Russia and the
Ukraine in the northeast to the Levant in the south and Spain in the west (Vanhaeren
and d'Errico 2006). While often reconstructed by archaeologists as necklaces or
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
55
Fig. 14 A range of Aurignacian beads and pendants from various European sites, some of which may
have been sewn onto garments (redrawn from Vanhaeren and d'Errico 2006, p. 1112).
bracelets, many beads were probably sewn onto clothing (White 1986, p. 93), and
sometimes, the distribution of such items among human burials in itself suggests
they were sewn onto clothing. A prime example occurs during the height of the last
ice age in northern Eurasia, at the Russian site of Sungir northeast of Moscow. Here,
human skeletal remains were covered with thousands of beads made from mammoth
ivory, the distributions of which indicate they were sewn onto fitted, tailored
garments, consistent with the use of complex clothing at latitude 56° N during the
LGM (Bader and Bader 2000, p. 29; Kuzmin et al. 2004).
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Gilligan
The early occurrence of beads in Africa dating to around 72,000 years ago and
perhaps 90–100,000 years ago―coinciding with cold episodes―is cited as key
evidence for behavioral modernity in the African MSA (McBrearty and Brooks
2000, pp. 521–524; Henshilwood et al. 2004; Jacobs et al. 2006). The world's
earliest beads are claimed to be three perforated shells from caves in Israel (Skhul)
and Algeria (Oued Djebbana) excavated during the midtwentieth century. A recent
study concludes that these ornaments may date to around 100,000 years ago based,
in the case of the Skhul shells, on an inferred association with the Skhul II remains
dated to between 135,000 and 100,000 years ago and, in the case of the Algerian
shell, an association with a middle paleolithic (Aterian) assemblage that may date to
as early as ∼90,000 years ago (Vanhaeren et al. 2006). Another contender for the site
of the world's oldest personal ornaments is the Grotte des Pigeons cave in eastern
Morocco where shell beads were recovered from a level with middle paleolithic
tools (such as side scrapers) dated to between 91,500 and 73,400 years ago; some of
the shells had residues of red pigment, presumably due to having rubbed against a
“material embedded with ochre”—such as hide, skin, or thread (Bouzouggar et al.
2007, p. 9968).
Figurines and Footprints
In addition to eyed needles, the upper paleolithic yields reasonably secure
archaeological evidence for complex clothing in the guise of carved figurines and
engravings. Besides illustrating the artistic capabilities of modern humans, some of
these objects and images indicate the presence of garments that enclose much of the
body, with varying degrees of clarity. Among the most convincing are a couple of
figurines from the sites of Buret' and Mal'ta, dating to 21,000 and 15,000 years ago
(Clark and Piggott 1965, pp. 99–100; McBurney 1976, p. 28; Leroi-Gourhan 1988,
pp. 166, 656–657). The figurine from Buret' (carved from mammoth tusk) is
associated with eyed needles and appears to depict a fitted garment assemblage
covering the whole body (Fig. 15), including a “parka”-type hood over the head
(Collins 1986, p. 251). There are also strong hints of hoods in French Magdalenian
engravings from Gabillou (Fig. 16) and Angles-sur-l'Anglin (de Sonneville-Bordes
1973, p. 57; Leroi-Gourhan 1988, pp. 409, 909), while a number of engravings at La
Marche (around 15,000 years ago) show people who “seem fully dressed in tailored
clothing with cuffs and collars” (White 1986, p. 78).
A number of the so-called Venus figurines from the LGM are of interest because
they appear to show what may be the earliest archaeological evidence for garments
woven from textile fibers. Weaving technology is attested from early in the LGM,
with impressions of woven textiles or basketry preserved on pottery fragments dated
to between 27,000 and 25,000 years ago at Pavlov I in the Czech Republic
(Adovasio et al. 1996). Natural fibers were employed also for making ropes at least
from late glacial times, with cord fragments surviving from 19,300 years ago at the
Ohalo II site in Israel (Nadel et al. 1994) as well as a fossilized rope fragment from
the Lascaux cave in France, occupied about 17,000 years ago (Leroi-Gourhan 1982,
p. 110). Actual remains of woven cloth have not survived from the paleolithic; the
earliest fragments (made from linen) occur from around 9,000 years ago during the
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
57
Fig. 15 Bone statuette of a
hooded figure from the LGM at
Buret' (Siberia), with markings
that may depict a fitted garment
assemblage (redrawn from
Wymer 1982, p. 248).
early Holocene at a number of sites in the Levant, including Çayönü and Nahal
Hemar (Schick 1988; Shimony and Jucha 1988; Wilford 1993).
Among the “Venus” figurines that may show woven apparel is the small (3.6 cm)
sculpture of a human head from Brassempouy, recovered in 1894 from layer E
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Gilligan
Fig. 16 Engraving known as
“La femme à anorak” (woman
with parka) on a wall at Gabillou
Cave (Dordogne), France
(redrawn from White 1986,
p. 79). White notes that the sex
of the figure is not clear and
visualizing the anorak “requires
imagination” (ibid.).
(assigned to the Gravettian, 27,000 to 21,000 years ago) at the Grotte du Pape, in
southwest France (White 2006b). Carved from mammoth ivory and originally named
La Dame à la capuche (“woman with a hood”), the crisscrossed markings on the
head give the impression of a woven headdress, though these could conceivably
represent plaited hair. More substantial evidence of a woven cap in the Gravettian is
seen on the head of the “Venus of Willendorf” from Austria, and a similar figurine
from Kostenki in the Ukraine has, in addition to a woven cap or hood, a number of
bands or straps around the chest that are clearly woven (Soffer et al. 2000, pp. 517–
520). Of all the “Venus” figurines, the sculpture from Lespugue (found in 1922 in
the foothills of the Pyrenees and also Gravettian) has the most complete woven
garment, a remarkably detailed rear skirt (Fig. 17) composed of twisted cords hung
from a woven belt (ibid., p. 520).
Footprints are preserved at a number of ice age cave sites, but foot coverings or
shoes are largely absent; one footprint at Fontanet Cave in southern France,
however, may well be that of a moccasin (Leroi-Gourhan 1988, p. 1108). An
analysis of pedal morphology (particularly robusticity of the toes) among modern
humans and those from the middle and upper paleolithic suggests that people
increasingly began wearing soft shoes for thermal reasons—as protection against
frostbite—in the late Pleistocene, although a subsequent shift to more rigid soled
footwear and boots may have been “principally a cultural phenomenon” (Trinkaus
2005, p. 1523).
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
59
Fig. 17 Rear view of the
figurine from Lespugue, France,
with a skirt of twisted cords
hung from a woven belt
(redrawn from Bahn and
Vertut 1997, p. 161).
The Case of the Missing Fingertips
The emphasis in this thermal model is primarily on the development of clothing as a
human adaptation to reduce the risk of hypothermia, since the latter presents a direct
threat to human survival in cold environments. Frostbite, in contrast, is less
dangerous—ritualistic amputation of fingertips, for example, mimics a consequence
of frostbite but has been a widely practiced ceremonial activity in many parts of the
world. Nonetheless, frostbite may be relevant not only to the advent of shoes but
also to a long-running debate concerning one curious feature of the hand stencils that
are among the most common human images from the last ice age in Europe: many
have missing fingertips. This has often been interpreted as a kind of symbolic
gesture or coded sign language, with the fingers being bent to create the shortened
outlines (e.g., Clottes and Courtin 1996, p. 77). On the other hand, the lost fingertips
may be real, resulting either from deliberate mutilation or physical pathology (Bahn
and Vertut 1997, pp. 120–121). Medical causes for the shortened finger outlines
could include syphilis, diabetic gangrene, arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, chronic
infection, Raynaud's disease, and frostbite (Janssens 1957).
The hand stencils with reduced or missing finger silhouettes are known widely as
“Gargas hands,” named after the cave site in the French Pyrenees where more than a
hundred were found in 1906. Most Gargas hands date to the Gravettian but some
occur as late as the Magdalenian—one, for example, is reported at Margot Cave in
northern France (Pigeaud et al. 2006). Cosquer Cave in southeast France, discovered
in 1985 and dating from 27,000 years ago in the Gravettian (Clottes et al. 1997), has
60
Gilligan
more than 50 hand stencils, with nearly two thirds of them being Gargas hands
(Fig. 18). While all four fingers are involved to varying degrees, the fifth is most
frequently shortened or “folded” and, as with every known Gargas hand, the thumb
“is always intact” (Clottes and Courtin 1996, p. 76). The nearby Chauvet Cave,
discovered in 1994, is said to date from around 31,000 years ago in the late
Auriganacian (when climatic conditions may have been milder), although doubts
linger as to the early date (e.g., Pettitt 2008). Chauvet has hundreds of spectacular
paintings but only a few hand stencils—all of which have complete fingers (Chauvet
et al. 1996, p. 110).
One particular feature of the Gargas hands points strongly to frostbite rather than
to sign language or ritual amputation: the pattern of reduced digits matches perfectly
the differing susceptibility of human fingers to frostbite. The more slender fifth and
ring fingers are most frequently affected by frostbite and, even in cases of severe
frostbite to the hand, the thumb usually remains intact (Carrera et al. 1981; Kahn
et al. 2005). The reason for the comparative immunity of the thumb to shortening
from frostbite is that it is better protected from the cold by its stubby shape and it is
also more easily folded into the palm for warmth. Proponents of alternative
explanations rarely emphasize this intriguing aspect of the Gargas hands, yet it
presents a great difficulty, since people using a sign language would presumably
tend to use a wider variety of finger patterns and would almost certainly include the
thumb, being the easiest digit to fold fully out of view. In Australia, for instance, the
Fig. 18 Hand stencils (grouped according to the number of missing fingers) at Cosquer Cave, France,
dating to the Gravettian around 27,000 years ago. Most of the images depict left (L) hands; the numbers
indicate the frequencies of the different patterns (redrawn from Clottes and Courtin 1996, p. 77).
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
61
shortened finger outlines in some of the hand stencils are readily attributable to “sign
languages” rather than to ceremonial mutilations or frostbite. These stencils show the
wide variety of finger patterns that would be expected of any such gestural code
(Walsh 1979). Significantly, in many cases, the thumb is absent, being folded
completely out of view, whereas the fifth finger not infrequently remains fully
extended—in marked contrast to the pattern seen with the Gargas hands of late
Pleistocene Europe. In many of the Australian stencils too, there is “evidence of
indistinct or foggy stencilling in the area of the ‘missing’ or ‘contorted’ digits…
Obviously a finger folded under the palm of the hand does not allow this section to
come in close contact with the rock surface, and fogging from underspray will
occur” (ibid., p. 34). While Gargas stencils are sometimes indistinct, the finger
outlines of others are quite clearly defined, yet no such fogging is evident around the
shortened fingers.
In all likelihood, frostbite was largely responsible for the distinctive pattern of
stunted finger outlines in the hand stencils of ice age Europe, illustrating how serious
was the need for adequate insulation in these severe environments. Ritual amputation
is not entirely excluded, and ritual practices could, for instance, mimic the observed
effects of frostbite among otherwise hardy individuals exposed to cold injury while
engaged in outdoor hunting or other activities. The consequences of frostbite include
amputation, either by autoamputation following gangrene or by deliberate amputation
as a surgical intervention to remove infected tissue or chronically painful digits, which
even today remains a standard treatment in severe cases (Bruen et al. 2007).
Photographs of the resulting deformities show patterns of shortened fingers (with
intact thumbs) that are indistinguishable from Gargas hands (e.g., Koljonen et al.
2004, p. 1319; Golant et al. 2008, pp. 711–712).
If frostbite was indeed to blame, then the question arises as to why the fingers of
fully modern humans who had developed adequate clothing—complex clothing in
this thermal model—should remain vulnerable to frostbite. The answer is partly
pragmatic and partly physiological. The pragmatic aspect is that any covering for the
fingers needs to be very delicate indeed if dexterity is to be maintained—and the
eyed needles that would facilitate such fine sewing did not become common until
the Solutrean, in the context of an added need for multilayered garments during the
colder winters around 22,000 years ago, as discussed earlier. The physiological
aspect is counterintuitive, in that insulating the fingers can exacerbate heat loss. The
reason is that adding a layer of insulation to any cylinder of very small diameter will
often increase net heat loss due to the relatively small amount of trapped air coupled
to a greater effective surface area; this factor is of little significance for larger entities
such as the limbs and torso (Burton and Edholm 1955, p. 62). In other words, even
when modern humans are protected by complex clothing (including all but the more
bulky of gloves), the fingers remain at considerable risk of frostbite. Mittens are a
reasonable compromise where movement of individual fingers is not crucial, and the
thumb (more resistant to frostbite and the most useful of the digits) can still be
enclosed separately from the rest of the hand. Similar considerations apply to the
toes, although maintaining manual dexterity (and tactile sensitivity) for toes is less of
a priority than for fingers—shoes that enclose the whole foot do not inhibit the
function of walking. Frostbite remains a concern for the toes, however, even when
feet are shod, if walking involves prolonged contact with snow or ice on the ground.
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Gilligan
Radiological evidence for frostbite causing shortening of all toes was found in a
2,000-year-old mummy from the pre-Columbian site of San Pedro de Atacama,
Chile (altitude 2,500 m), although archaeological evidence suggests that footwear
was uncommon at the time—sandals were present in only three of the 4,000 tombs
excavated in the area (Post and Donner 1972). The so-called Iceman provides
another example: discovered in the Tyrolean Alps of Italy in 1991 and dating to
around 5,000 years ago, his feet were protected with shoes made of calf-skin and lined
inside by grass for added insulation (Barfield 1994). Nevertheless, X-rays revealed
pathological changes in one of his toes consistent with frostbite, and it was the more
vulnerable (fifth) toe that was affected (Murphy et al. 2003, p. 623)—echoing the
vulnerability of the fifth finger of the hand witnessed in the Gargas stencils.
The ritual mutilation theory of the Gargas hands received an unexpected boost
with the discovery of a couple of human finger bones (phalanges) at Oblazowa
Cave, a Pavlovian (Eastern Gravettian) site in southern Poland (Valde-Nowak et al.
1987; Valde-Nowak 2003). Although the cave sediments were screened through
fine-mesh (1 mm) sieves, these two phalanges were the only human remains
recovered. The layer (VII) adjacent to that containing the phalanges corresponds to
the “coldest period” of the LGM (Valde-Nowak 1991, p. 599). The few accompanying
objects found in the same layer (VIII) as the finger bones were “objects of great
significance” such as three tooth pendants made of Arctic fox bone, a needle, and
remarkably, a boomerang (the world's oldest), suggesting that this deposit was no
ordinary hunting camp but a “special” place, perhaps where ritual activities such as
“shamanism” were practiced—including ritual amputation of fingertips (Valde-Nowak
2009, pp. 203–205). Yet one simple fact about this seemingly convincing evidence
for ritual amputation as the cause of Gargas hands is incongruous: one of the two
phalanges is that of a thumb. The thumb, as emphasized above, is always spared in the
Gargas hands, even when all four fingers are involved. Ritual amputation may best
explain the two Oblazowa phalanges, but generalization to the Gargas hand stencils is
problematical. The investigation of the missing fingertips in the hand stencils of the
European upper paleolithic may have taken an unexpected twist with the Oblazowa
finds, but the cautious conclusion—on the basis of available “forensic” evidence—is
that the case is not yet closed.
Clothing and Modern Human Behavior
A human proclivity for artistic expression and adornment may have little relevance
to clothing origins in the thermal model proposed here, but the repercussions of
complex clothing for social display have archaeological implications—particularly
for the emergence of modern human behavior. The advent of complex clothing can
be linked not only to an increasing capacity of fully modern humans to inhabit
cooler environments (Hoffecker 2005b), but also (less directly) to other archaeological signatures of modern human behavior, including decoration (for a list and
discussion of the “signatures,” see McBrearty and Brooks 2000, pp. 491–492).
Rather than attributing the emergence of modern behavior to purported cognitive
changes that are oddly decoupled from the emergence of biological modernity, the
regionally variable, often delayed, and in some instances, strangely recurring
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
63
disappearance and reappearance of its various components are more likely related
somehow to the fluctuating environmental contexts within which they occurred
(d'Errico 2003, p. 199; Hiscock and O'Connor 2006). A thermal approach suggests a
plausible basis for connecting archaeologically detectable expressions of behavioral
modernity with environmental change, and the discoveries in Africa—especially
southern Africa—are particularly relevant (e.g., Wurz 1999; Henshilwoood et al.
2001; d'Errico and Henshilwood 2007). These points to an African origin of
developments more traditionally seen as European phenomena including artistic
expression, external symbolic representation, and other signs of modern human
behavior. Moreover, both the African origins—which predate the LGM and, in some
instances, predate the last glacial cycle—and the Eurasian intensification of the
trends during the LGM are accommodated, as are the generally weaker archaeological signatures of behavioral modernity in warmer parts of the Pleistocene world,
notably in the southern Asian and especially the Australian regions (e.g., Brumm and
Moore 2005; Habgood and Franklin 2008).
Archaeological Signatures
Components of modern human behavior that can be linked to thermal adaptations
include not only technologies (particularly blade-based lithics and bone implements
used in the manufacture of complex garment assemblages) but also less tangible
aspects (Table V). The latter are now viewed as the more archaeologically consistent
indicators of behavioral modernity, whereas lithic technologies (and blade-based
forms in particular) are considered less reliable (e.g., Hiscock 1996; Bar-Yosef and
Kuhn 1999; Bar-Yosef 2002). Among these other aspects are greater control of fire
(e.g., more structured hearths), specialized hunting (for hides and also for meat to
sustain the higher rates of metabolism required in cold environments), sophisticated
artificial shelters, greater residential sedentism, increased use of pigment (connected
with hide preparation as well as decoration), and various archaeological signs of
personal adornment and symbolism (e.g., Van Peer et al. 2003; Mellars 2005). A
detailed review of all these aspects falls outside the scope of this paper, although one
example—a link between clothing and archaeological evidence for adornment and
artistic expression—can be mentioned here.
Adornment and Art
A pragmatic repercussion of complex clothing is that covering of the skin surface
with fitted garments means that decorative and symbolic modification of the human
body is displaced elsewhere, onto garments and even into greater symbolic modification
of the physical environment. Adornment of the unclad body typically leaves little trace
in the archaeological record. Once these decorative and symbolic functions are
transferred to clothing and other media external to the body, they become more visible in
the archaeological record. As discussed above, the ornamental shell beads discovered
in Africa dating to the early cold phases in the last glacial cycle (MIS 5d–MIS 4) have
been widely construed as evidence for the emergence of modern human behavior and
symbolic thinking in the African MSA (Henshilwood et al. 2004; Jacobs et al. 2006;
Vanhaeren et al. 2006).
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Table V Archaeological Signatures of Behavioral Modernity Grouped According to the Strength of their
Suggested Association with Complex Clothing and Other Thermal Adaptations
Strength
Archaeological signature of behavioral modernity
Strong
Range extension to previously unoccupied environments (cold)
New lithic technologies (blades)
Tools in novel materials (bone)
Greater control of fire (e.g., stone-lined hearths)
Site reoccupation and modification (greater use of sheltered sites)
Specialized hunting (for meat and hides/furs)
Personal adornment (beads and ornaments)
Increased use of pigment
Grindstones (ochre-grinding)
Moderate
Parietal art (and other external images and representations)
Increased artifact diversity and standardization (functional variation)
Geographic/temporal variation in formal tool categories
Hafting and composite tools/projectiles
Intensification of resource extraction (vegetable—fibers)
Structured use of domestic space (functional/social differentiation)
Mining (for pigments)
Tenuous
Notched and incised objects
Long-distance procurement and exchange of raw materials
In-depth planning
Increased artifact diversity and standardization (stylistic variation)
Curation of exotic raw materials
New lithic technologies (microblades/geometric microliths)
Speculative
Burials (with or without grave goods)
Group and individual self-identification through artifact style
Scheduling and seasonality in resource exploitation
None
Range extension (desert, rainforest)
Intensification of resource extraction (aquatic, vegetable—comestible)
Grindstones (plant processing)
This same principle applies generally to the evidence for enhanced artistic
expression among fully modern humans in the late Pleistocene. Rather than
reflecting any heightened mental capacity for such behavior, an increased frequency
of parietal art instead may reflect a shift from modification and decoration of the
exposed skin surface onto alternative surfaces such as cave walls—witnessed briefly
in Tasmania (e.g., Cosgrove and Jones 1989). It was further transposed into
decorative modification of other external material forms seen, for instance, in
figurines—a prominent feature of the upper paleolithic artistic fluorescence in
Eurasia during the LGM—once free access to the most favored medium for human
artistic expression (the skin) was restricted by its routine concealment with
multilayered, complex clothing.
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
65
Nonetheless, adornment of the uncovered body surface may not be completely
invisible: one archaeological sign might be the use of colored pigments, which has
accompanied hominins since at least Middle Pleistocene times (e.g., Barham 2002).
Specific color selection (especially for red ochre) has been advanced as early
evidence for behavioral modernity among Near East modern humans who
temporarily replaced Neanderthals in the region during a warm spell (MIS 5c)
100–90,000 years ago (Hovers et al. 2003), whereas the more common black
pigments would be less useful for purposes of body painting among early blackskinned moderns. However, while this alleged colored marker of modernity
continues through to the Holocene in Africa, pigment use subsequently diminishes
among fully modern humans in the Levant during MIS 3 and MIS 2 (when,
coincidentally, complex clothing was required), only to resurface during warm
oscillations at the end of the last ice age (ibid., p. 510). On the other hand, the
higher-latitude homelands of Neanderthals favored not only biological cold
adaptation (hence limiting their insulatory requirement for clothing and leaving
their body surface more available for decoration), it also favored lighter skin color,
as these regions lie mainly within ultraviolet zone 2 (Jablonski and Chaplin 2000,
pp. 67–69). Black pigment would be useful for decorating pale skin; indeed, at
Peche de-l'Azé, microwear abrasions on black (manganese dioxide) colorant blocks
are consistent with their decorative use by Neanderthals on “matières souples”
(supple materials) such as “la peau humaine”—human skin (Soressi and d'Errico
2007, p. 306).
Anatomical and Behavioral Modernity
Archaeological evidence for the emergence of behavioral modernity is evidently
connected only loosely—if at all—with anatomical modernity (Zilhão 2007).
Instead, its purported biological basis is a nebulous process entailing cognitive
reorganization within the human brain that promoted the development of language
and other symbolizing abilities—the only evidence for which is the very evidence
this invisible revolution seeks to explain (and the underlying cause for which is
equally nebulous). One alternative proposal is that behavioral modernity has its roots
in “the realm of cultural, demographic, and social processes” (ibid., p. 40)—which,
in terms of archaeological visibility and testability, may prove only relatively less
nebulous (c.f., Henshilwood and Marean 2003, p. 636) A thermal model, on the
other hand, suggests that the advent of modern capacities coincided with the
emergence of anatomical modernity (and some of the capacities probably predate it).
What is visible in the archaeological record is greater archaeological visibility of
these capacities. This, in turn, is largely consequent upon the acquisition of complex
clothing and its repercussions―hence, an archaeologically visible and testable
association with environmental trends and fluctuations (Fig. 19).
Conclusions
A primary aim of prehistoric archaeology is to exploit the perspective of the time
depth it encompasses to help understand how our species has come to occupy its
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Gilligan
Fig. 19 Proposed thermal thresholds for the development of complex clothing in the last glacial cycle
(based on wind chill trends), with (upper graph) the recurring but accumulating repercussions which cross
a threshold by late in MIS 2, beyond which they become effectively decoupled from thermal
contingencies.
unique evolutionary position in the contemporary world. The paradigm of cultural
ecology, followed so widely in hunter–gatherer studies, would argue that
environmental adaptations―biological and behavioral―have been largely responsible. Yet the global archaeological record testifies that universal modern human
qualities such as bipedalism, high intelligence, language, and other cognitive
capacities can at best comprise only a portion of the explanation. The early
archaeological signs of major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural developments leading to our modern-day existence do not coincide with, nor follow
consistently from, our emergence as a species. Most are geographically localized to
certain regions and are generally limited to the comparatively recent past. This
observation suggests that contextual contingencies have played a significant, even
decisive, role in our recent evolutionary history.
Those factors, it is argued here, relate to the unusual biological vulnerability of
our species to cold and the development of a unique behavioral adaptation, namely,
The Prehistoric Development of Clothing
67
clothing, in response to severe climate change in the late Quaternary. The thermal
challenges this posed for human survival were regionally variable and most intense
during the late Pleistocene, particularly in the colder phases of the last glacial cycle.
The advent of clothing―especially complex clothing―set in train a series of
technological innovations and other repercussions that have transformed the human
world and, increasingly, the world around us. Despite being a prominent material
Fig. 20 Proposed sequence for the prehistoric development of clothing during the Quaternary period and
some of its archaeological repercussions.
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Gilligan
sign of our modern distinctiveness, clothing has been largely ignored in the
discipline of prehistory. Among the reasons for this neglect are poor archaeological
visibility and the decoupling of complex clothing from its thermal origins,
compounded by a traditional emphasis on the social purposes of clothing at the
expense of its physiological functions and effects. These last extend beyond thermal
insulation and include the perceptual, psychological, and psychosocial effects of
routinely covering the skin, our largest sensory organ. Skin mediates much of our
sensory experience and information-gathering about our surroundings and serves as
the main interface between us and the physical world (Jablonski 2006, pp. 1–2).
Tactile sensation, for example, is crucial to normal mammalian development, and the
routine wearing of clothes will inhibit tactile contacts between humans and reduce
sensory appreciation of the environment (e.g., Montagu 1986, pp. 181–182), with
the potential to alter fundamental interpersonal, social, and environmental relationships. This has implications for the development of altered cognitive styles
underlying certain elements of behavioral modernity that subsequently can be
transmitted at a cultural level, almost independently of clothing (although discussion
of these aspects lies outside the scope of this paper). While the nonthermal functions
and effects of clothing became increasingly significant towards the terminal Pleistocene
and into the Holocene, thermal considerations are nevertheless implicated in the
widespread postglacial shift to the use of woven textiles. Production of natural fibers for
textile clothing was a prominent aspect of early agriculture and may constitute a viable
basis in its own right for this economic transition that proved pivotal to the rise of urban
societies (Gilligan 2007b).
Archaeologically invisible though it may appear, clothing is arguably of great
importance to key issues in human prehistory. The focus in this paper has been
restricted to outlining a thermal model for its prehistoric origins and for the
subsequent emergence of complex clothing (Fig. 20). Thermal parameters—
physiological and environmental—provide a means for inferring the presence of
clothing, and technological considerations provide a method for tracking its
development archaeologically. The technological correlates are predictable and
visible and draw attention to the environmental context of major paleolithic trends,
many of which may relate primarily to innovations in clothing.
Acknowledgements Earlier drafts and portions of the present paper were kindly read by Robert Boyd,
David Bulbeck, Colin Groves, Brian Hayden, Johan Kamminga, Michael J. Walker, and Peter White, and
it has benefited greatly from their critical comments. David Reed clarified some of the complexities
involved with interpreting the genetic studies of human lice, Bob Steadman generously provided additional
information on the subject of wind chill, and Mark White supplied a number of obscure references. Special
thanks are due to three anonymous reviewers whose comments proved immensely valuable.
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